complete circuitry change and re-wire advice

[2ndharmonic]

Greetings to ALL. I am new to forums(3 days here) so if I'm in the wrong place for the following, please let me know. Also apologies for a post that some may feel too long. My posts are normally fairly short. I,m a guitarist(32 years), and have tinkered and tweaked from the start. I have some electronics background, having certified to assemble and hand solder avionics boards, and having studied the basics of theory(self-taught).
The project that I am undertaking is turning a cheap(but good) guitar into a better and more expensive guitar. You can't get much cheaper than a pawn shop Kramer Focus 111s. However, its played great to begin with, acoustically.
After upgrading with quality tuners, bridge,roller string trees,bone nut, clear-coating,blocking the tremelo, and adding mass to the back of the headstock(brass), I now wish to change pickups,pots, switches,wiring etc. I intend to shield the not to large "cavity" with conductive copper tape. Question :
I'm wondering if the string earth needs to be grounded to the shielding.
I'm also installing a switchable Q-filter(Bill Lawrence). Any advice or tips will be considered and are very welcome. I'm not crazy. I just enjoy mods,
kits, builds, repairs,etc. I don't know what I enjoy more : playing, performing, or tweaking my equipment. Thanks in advance. My best to ALL.

[walterw]

the "string earth" needs to connect to ground, as does any shielding.

[2ndharmonic]

Greetings walterw.

Thanks for the needed advice. One of the few things that I haven't done to a guitar is completely shield a control cavity, and I had never taken notice, nor given it thought until this project(dumb). I really appreciate the advice. The Kramer had zero shielding that I could determine, and was painted the same red that the rest of the body was finished with. Have a great day. 2ndharmonic.

[mbd1475]

You can just ground the string earth to the back of a pot.

[2ndharmonic]

Greetings mbd1475.

Thnaks very much for your re-ply. It's easy enough to ground to pot's back. I sure want to get it ALL right. I've got quite a few hours in the project already. These things take on a life of their own ! It's a good thing I enjoy it so much. I think that when I'm done I'll really have something
to be enjoyed for nstarting out with a "pawn shop special".
Have a great day ! 2ndharmonic.

[Tone_Terrific]

If you do not have an ohm meter get one and use it to test and confirm connections of all sorts.

[2ndharmonic]

Tone Terrific. thanks for a good reminder about continuity checking on this
(simple ?) project. it,s been awhile since I did a complete averhaul like this. that's why I asked for "any advice" along with questioning the string earth grounding. Doing something like this AS I GO, could save a BIG headache when I first plug her in. My soldering is usually good quality as I once did electronics assembly in avionics, but anybody can make a bad joint. I'm glad I moved here from another forum. Everything I have asked about has been met with kind, and usful advice. This instead of put-downs, and attitude issues. Thanks so much for reminding me of such a simple, yet forgotten, way to forestall what could become a real mess.
2ndharmonic.

[rickadus31]

I have the same Focus 111s and some wire came loose like a year ago and can't find the schematic to fix it online. I was wondering if I can get some help to find one or also to know how you wired yours.

[walterw]

you're probably not gonna find a schematic for that guitar, but there's tons of them out there for the same configuration; how many pickups, how many knobs and switches?