I got me a used MIM Fender Jazz (2001 model, perversely good shape) for Squier money, $270. If I don't have both pups on or the tone all the way back, the thing buzzes like a beehive. I just got a shielding kit from Stewart-MacDonald. I can't speak for the specific results that shielding will produce, but an article on the StewMac site insists that good shielding will kill buzz as well as a dual coil pickup. Here's some of the article:
Carlos Santana’s Strat
Here’s an impressive shielding job. A few months back, Dan Erlewine received a cool mid-60s Strat from Carlos Santana. It needed to be refretted and set up. Inspecting the guitar showed that someone had totally shielded the instrument — the pickup cavities, the pickguard, and even the trem spring cavity and cover on the back. For extra strength and electrical continuity, they soldered the overlapping pieces of foil together — a very thorough job indeed! And the buzz is long gone.
Speaking of totally shielded, the old Danelectro/Silvertone guitars were super-shielded. The covers of their classic lipstick tube pickups acted as shields, and the components inside were encased in copper.
When Nat Daniel, the inventor/founder of Danelectro, introduced these “Totally Shielded” guitars at the NAMM (Nat’l Assoc. of Music Merchants) show, he set up a large neon sign in the exhibition hall. The Dan-os sounded just fine right next to that big neon, while it had other single coils buzzing out of control!
The rest of the article is at:
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