Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

He's in Ft. Lauderdale, at the moment.

Ok, after a good test an hammering the strings at practice, everything seems to be fine again So after som fine sanding, clean and check over everything I got joy!

Cheers all

Goopd deal, Ben!

Yeah, I'm pretty happy to say the least

Now I just need to fix my popping, scratching input jack!! And that, I just don't see the answer too!!! All leads appear to be solder on correctly...could it be the 'dry solder' joints I hear about??

Make sure the "fingers" of the jack are making good contact with the cable plug, and don't use cheap cables as the plug diameters are metric and a bit smaller and will be loose in the jack.

Glad to see you got the breakage problem sorted - now I have to sell all my stock in string manufacturers.

I'm gonna go over the jack with a fine tooth tonight I have tried heaps of different leads (and I do use good quality ones) so I don't think it's that.

If necessary, get some Caig DeoxIT contact cleaner at a local electronics shop:
http://store.caig.com/s.nl/it.A/id.1982 ... tegory=821

I thought that I may have a 'dry' solder joint in my jack somehow. I gently reheated each soldered point until it became shiney again. This seems to have helped a little, but not fully. I did dig out another lead (forth tried!) and it has a 'Ream' branded jack on it that was slightly (like 2mm) shorter than the other jacks I tried. The problem still exists, but it is a LOT less noticeable with the slightly shorter jack.

This all leads (no pun intended) to think that maybe I should make up a lead with Switchcraft jack on it.

Still, I think this is a bit ****! Every other guitar I have work fine with my leads (and they aren't cheap, rubbish leads either)...TBQH I am getting a bit sick of having to 'baby' my Rics: I just want them to function AND sound good...is that too much to ask?!

Ben, it's just like with cars ... some of them require a little more maintenance and TLC than others ... (I do feel your pain!)

Thinking about it though, if it were a problem regarding leads, surely all Ric players would be in the same boat, which makes me think, maybe I have a duff input jack...anyone know where you can buy them?

Glad I thought about this some more: took everything apart yet again, but used some electrical contact cleaner and a piece of fine grade sandpaper and cleaned the thing up. Put it back together and there are NO MORE CRACKLES! Woo!

Hopefully you took a moment to bend the jack's contact for the tip of the plug slightly inward so that it makes more solid contact with the plug.

Sure did

ledbye wrote:Glad I thought about this some more: took everything apart yet again, but used some electrical contact cleaner and a piece of fine grade sandpaper and cleaned the thing up. Put it back together and there are NO MORE CRACKLES! Woo!

That's great news! Glad we were able to help.

OK, back onto string break topic....it's happening again and there are definitely no burrs on the saddles. I am getting pretty desperate here! I can't trust it at a gig and it is costing me a fortune in strings!

D'you think I should buy a new bridge and have it fitted? Does anyone know if you can buy replacement saddles as opposed to the whole thing?