Best practice: Soldering the guitar jack-Tips/Tricks

[Ekimneets]

While my soldering has improved 10,000% with the addition of reading glasses (I’m officially an old fart) and rote practice, my weakest joint is at the guitar jack.

Any tips/tricks or am I just a goober?

-Mike

[madbean]

Cut the lead extra long, wrap it over itself through the hole on the jack then once around itself. Makes a super strong physical connection for soldering.

[somnif]

A dab of liquid flux can make them much less annoying in my experience. I use a needle-point dropper (all I could find in town), but flux pens also work extremely well for such applications.

[sjaustin]

Get some coarse sandpaper and scuff the tabs. The solder will “absorb” into the abrasions. Some brands are worse than others. Switchcraft seems to be the worst for some reason.

[thesmokingman]

the scuffing tip is also recommended for the backs of pots

[gordo]

The Neutrik Rean variety seem to be about the best for soldering.  No fiddling around the solder sucks right up.  Maybe higher tin content or cadmium plating?

[Ekimneets]

I totally thought people would have no idea what I meant or would think this was minutiae. Thanks for not making fun of me.

I appreciate the tips and Brian that’s my current practice, but I just shipped a pedal off for a demo that worked prior to shipment, I actually took a video. So, I’m populating a list of suspects to run down. That was my number one suspect. Guess I’ll chill out and wait till I get my hands on it.

-Mike