It happens time after time. A person buys a guitar, plays it for a while and then finds the jack socket is loose.
It's happened on every guitar I've had, and just about every one else's I know too. You tighten it up and it works loose again. Then later on, the guitar stops working altogether - bummer.
What's happening is that, every time you tighten the nut holding the socket on, you're also tightening anything that's connected to the back of it, i.e. the signal wires from the pickups. You carry on tightening it, and before long one of the wires that carries the signal, is twisted right off the socket, and so your electric guitar produces no sound. However, you don't need to be an electronics wizz to fix this once and for all, as it's quite easy to mend.
When you buy a new electric guitar, the first thing you should do, is stop that socket moving. Take the whole thing off by removing the mounting plate. You'll see that the socket is sandwiched on either side by a nut to hold it in place. Make sure the inner nut is tight then stop it moving permanently with a dab of glue, varnish or something else suitable to lock it in place.
You can do it to the outside nut as well, but many people leave this as they'd rather keep blobs of glue etc. on the inside of their brand new, shiny guitar.
If the guitar is dead, this is just the first part of the process. It's likely that one of the signal wires, as mentioned previously, has come off the back of the socket.
I borrowed a friend's guitar recently, and he advised me there was an electrical glitch with it, and was there anything I could do? Nothing on the guitar worked, and there was absolutely no sound coming out of it, so naturally he was really worried about it. My first thought was, one of the signal wires is broken, I'll check the jack socket, and after removing the plate, that's exactly what it was.
All I had to do was strip back the wire, re-attach it with a little solder, and tighten and treat the nuts as described. Put it all back together, and lo and behold, it works beautifully.
It's happened on every guitar I've had, and just about every one else's I know too. You tighten it up and it works loose again. Then later on, the guitar stops working altogether - bummer.
What's happening is that, every time you tighten the nut holding the socket on, you're also tightening anything that's connected to the back of it, i.e. the signal wires from the pickups. You carry on tightening it, and before long one of the wires that carries the signal, is twisted right off the socket, and so your electric guitar produces no sound. However, you don't need to be an electronics wizz to fix this once and for all, as it's quite easy to mend.
When you buy a new electric guitar, the first thing you should do, is stop that socket moving. Take the whole thing off by removing the mounting plate. You'll see that the socket is sandwiched on either side by a nut to hold it in place. Make sure the inner nut is tight then stop it moving permanently with a dab of glue, varnish or something else suitable to lock it in place.
You can do it to the outside nut as well, but many people leave this as they'd rather keep blobs of glue etc. on the inside of their brand new, shiny guitar.
If the guitar is dead, this is just the first part of the process. It's likely that one of the signal wires, as mentioned previously, has come off the back of the socket.
I borrowed a friend's guitar recently, and he advised me there was an electrical glitch with it, and was there anything I could do? Nothing on the guitar worked, and there was absolutely no sound coming out of it, so naturally he was really worried about it. My first thought was, one of the signal wires is broken, I'll check the jack socket, and after removing the plate, that's exactly what it was.
All I had to do was strip back the wire, re-attach it with a little solder, and tighten and treat the nuts as described. Put it all back together, and lo and behold, it works beautifully.
About the Author:
M Withers is author of an electric guitars blog. He is a keen enthusiast and has been playing the electric guitar for over 25 years.
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