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File this on under quot;Questions I never knew I had until I started trying to do this stuff myself instead of handing it over to my tech.quot;

What gauge/thickness wire should I be buying for guitar work? How much will I need to do a single instrument, on average? How important is it to buy shielded wire?

i only use shielded wire on longer runs like from the switch to the jack on a lp

the size of the wire doesnt matter too much. i think the stuff i have is 22 awg for non shielded and 0.09quot; shielded wire

how much you need per instrument depends on what type it is. a typical fender might use a foot or less a lp uses more

Is there any reason NOT to use shielded wire for everything, just to keep from having to buy two seperate spools?

One reason, although minor, shielded wire is a bit more of a pain to work with, and sometimes you want the ground and the hot of a wire to go two different places. I don't use it, myself, in guitars.

Wouldn't that only be a concern with the 2 or 4 conductor shielded wiring? I thought the single conductor would be just that -- a single strand, with shielding.

I just know how very noisy this particular guitar's circuits have tended to be in the past and while very little of the original electronics will be sticking around, it occurred to me that perhaps it would be worth it to go with shielded wiring.

But, if it's harder to work with...perhaps not.Originally Posted by ArtieToo

sometimes you want the ground and the hot of a wire to go two different places.
Yeah, it just depends on how you use it. I guess I was thinking in terms of a 2-conductor pup wire, where each part carries signal. But for wiring the output of the selector switch to the output jack, for instance, you could use the center for hot and the shield for ground - which, now that I say it, still makes it 2-conductor with both carrying signal.

If I have any run over a few inches, its always single conductor sheilded wire! For the very short peices, I will use anything small. Dosent really matter.