Stock shielding in an '09 Am. Standard J Bass?

[ric426]

My '09 American Standard J Bass appears to have graphite paint under the finish in the pickup and control cavities. There are ground lugs screwed into each cavity and they took the time to grind a bit of the finish away so the lugs would make better contact with the paint.
Does anyone know how thorough they are with the graphite paint? From what I've read you should use at least 2 coats of it with 24 hours between coats and I can't picture them doing that in mass production. The bass has the typical hum from the single coil pickups, but is reasonably quiet with them balanced.
I have a can of graphite paint and plenty of copper tape and was considering adding more shielding to see if it reduces the hum any further, but I was wondering one thing. Could adding a second layer of shielding with a layer of finish between them create any kind of capacitive weirdness? I realize that both layers would be grounded together at some point so any potential capacitance would likely be negligible, but what about ground loops? Assuming a star grounding approach, would I need to keep the two layers insulated from each other except at the central ground point?
Is this all just theoretical musing that won't really matter in the real application? Am I about to prove that a little knowledge *is* a dangerous (or at least annoying to others) thing?
Should I just shut up and go practice?
Wait, I know the answer to that one...

[walterw]

Originally Posted by ric426

Is this all just theoretical musing that won't really matter in the real application? Am I about to prove that a little knowledge *is* a dangerous (or at least annoying to others) thing?
Should I just shut up and go practice?
Wait, I know the answer to that one...

well, we all should do that, shouldn't we?

Extra shielding is likely pointless, and won't really help with that single coil hum anyway. All shielding does is reduce the static-y stuff you get when you let go of the bass with the volume up.

[Thunderitter]

Here's the before and after on my '09 - I did fit a ACG pre, so the shielding was needed to cut the static. I was impressed with the level of original shielding though with paint and grounds.