Members Jazzer2020 Posted March 16, 2022 Members Share Posted March 16, 2022 (edited) OK folks I could use some expert help now. I figured this would be a routine fix but no. I am getting a crackling sound at the input jack on my Gibson ES-175 (circa 1995). First thing I did was research how to take out the jack properly/easily. None of the pieces of wire I tried to insert into the input jack were going into the body !!! Finally I gave up and just dropped the jack into the body, realizing I'd need to fish it out later and fish it back into its hole. REASON WHY I couldn't insert any wire through the jack into the body? It's a non-standard input jack! It's ENLCOSED !!! So how do I properly clean out this jack? What was the reason they decided to put an enclosed jack rather an open one? If it was to prevent it from getting dirty, it didn't do the trick. Should I try to clean it out or just buy an new open one? Any other tips? Edited March 16, 2022 by Jazzer2020 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members badpenguin Posted March 17, 2022 Members Share Posted March 17, 2022 Firstly, it's an output jack. Secondly, it may be best just to get a replacement. It's 55 years old, things just wear out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jazzer2020 Posted March 17, 2022 Author Members Share Posted March 17, 2022 1 hour ago, badpenguin said: Firstly, it's an output jack. Secondly, it may be best just to get a replacement. It's 55 years old, things just wear out. OK thanks. My terminology can get really messed up with guitars. Circa 1995 makes it around 27 years old, but that's still quite old. (I have more than one ES-175). And how would you approach the replacement? Because of the logistics (the output jack won't fit through the f-hole). I'll need to get it out through the pickup hole (hopefully it will make it out the neck pickup hole, as the other hole was plugged a long time ago). How do you open up an enclosed jack? Or do you bother? Cut the wire at the jack? Have you done these operations on a hollow body? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators daddymack Posted March 17, 2022 Moderators Share Posted March 17, 2022 you opened a small can of worms....I don't think I ever saw a closed jack on a 175...did you buy it new? 1) enclosed jacks should be tossed when they fail. 2) are you sure it won't come out the f-hole? 3) you could have soldered a wire to the exposed metal of the neck of the jack...too late now. 4) yes I have rewired a number of hollow bodies, mine included...always a challenge...but do-able if you plan ahead and have the right tools. 5) was the nut full tight on the jack when you removed it? 6) there are choices you make when doing something new... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jazzer2020 Posted March 17, 2022 Author Members Share Posted March 17, 2022 (edited) 2 hours ago, daddymack said: you opened a small can of worms....I don't think I ever saw a closed jack on a 175...did you buy it new? 1) enclosed jacks should be tossed when they fail. 2) are you sure it won't come out the f-hole? 3) you could have soldered a wire to the exposed metal of the neck of the jack...too late now. 4) yes I have rewired a number of hollow bodies, mine included...always a challenge...but do-able if you plan ahead and have the right tools. 5) was the nut full tight on the jack when you removed it? 6) there are choices you make when doing something new... It's not as bad a situation as it seems. I've worked a lot on hollow bodies in the past. No, I didn't buy it new. But that doesn't mean the jack was necessarily modified. 1. I will toss this jack for sure. 2. Sure it won't come out. It's a huge mother! 3. Given that the jack has to go, having soldered it to a wire wouldn't have accomplished anything in the end. 4. I don't have the best tools, but I always make do. 5. Yes, full tight. 6. So far I don't regret anything I've done with this guitar. But you didn't answer my main question. Would you cut the enclosed jack out or try to crack it open and get at the leads there? We're talking about saving maybe one inch or less of wire. Edited March 17, 2022 by Jazzer2020 Bought used Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jtr654 Posted March 17, 2022 Members Share Posted March 17, 2022 Take the bridge PU out and tie dental floss to get things back into place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jazzer2020 Posted March 17, 2022 Author Members Share Posted March 17, 2022 19 minutes ago, jtr654 said: Take the bridge PU out and tie dental floss to get things back into place. "I'll need to get it out through the pickup hole (hopefully it will make it out the neck pickup hole, as the other hole was plugged a long time ago)." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members badpenguin Posted March 17, 2022 Members Share Posted March 17, 2022 Ok, unsolder. My opinion is always: "If you have to cut wires, you don't know what you are doing." You will have to pull all the pickup and pots out, the output jack, and unsolder the ground wire that goes to the bridge/tailpiece. That you should be able to do thru the F hole. (Should be connected to one of the pots, most likely tone.) The can covering the jack is held together by 2 solder points. Pretty easy to break open with a small screwdriver. (One of the STUPIDIST ideas Gibson and Aria ever did! Was thought to super shield from ground noise. Didn't do jack, except make money for repair techs.) Up to you if you want to replace the can. Then put it all back together. As to how: fishing line. I won't bother going into details. If you ever did hollow body electric work before, you know the drill. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators daddymack Posted March 17, 2022 Moderators Share Posted March 17, 2022 5 hours ago, Jazzer2020 said: It's not as bad a situation as it seems. I've worked a lot on hollow bodies in the past. No, I didn't buy it new. But that doesn't mean the jack was necessarily modified. 1. I will toss this jack for sure. 2. Sure it won't come out. It's a huge mother!4. I don't have the best tools, but I always make do. 5. Yes, full tight. 6. So far I don't regret anything I've done with this guitar. But you didn't answer my main question. Would you cut the enclosed jack out or try to crack it open and get at the leads there? We're talking about saving maybe one inch or less of wire. unsolder the jack...you will be soldering another one on anyway. Forget trying to salvage that POS. Get a good quality standard jack. Which brings us to:3. Given that the jack has to go, having soldered it to a wire wouldn't have accomplished anything in the end. How much simpler would it be to drag the new jack to the hole from the outside....if you already had a piece of wire running right through there. You would cut the wire off the junk jack, cut the wires [if you are worried about length you can add a short length of wire and splice it to the old leads or un-solder the two leads after prying open the shell] tie fishing line* through the new jack hole to the tip contact leg, and tie the other end to the wire, solder the leads to the new jack and draw it back through. Now though, you can't, so you are going to be doing a lot of wire fishing through a 3/8" diameter hole across the body to the pickup cutout...or the f-hole... "No, I didn't buy it new. But that doesn't mean the jack was necessarily modified" actually, I asked that because I was wondering why you'd buy an expensive guitar, and then mod it. You could go to the Gibson Custom shop and have them build you one exactly the way you want it. * bp: dead on, used it for years, also sometimes surgical tubing on pots ..but I have never run across a Gibson with that style jack. Terrible idea, just makes it harder to work on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mr.Grumpy Posted March 18, 2022 Members Share Posted March 18, 2022 21 hours ago, badpenguin said: The can covering the jack is held together by 2 solder points. Oh, so it's not an "enclosed" jack at all, it's a jack enclosed in a shielding can. I have an Aria Pro II ES-335 copy that used them. In theory, the shielding cans and shielded pickup wire should provide "100% coverage" from RFI in a wooden hollowbody guitar. Probably not practical to cover the inside of a hollow body guitar in copper foil. Given some peoples' OCD-leaning issues with shielding and noise, I'm surprised they're not de riguer for the Tones of Distinction people, (You know who you are) As others have pointed out, their benefit seems limited for the extra trouble (and SKILLz) needed to install/rework these. If one uses shielded wire to make the connections between pots, switches, and the output jack, then there's only a few short inches of un-shielded wire to act as a "noise antenna" inside the control cavity. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jazzer2020 Posted March 18, 2022 Author Members Share Posted March 18, 2022 1 hour ago, Mr.Grumpy said: Oh, so it's not an "enclosed" jack at all, it's a jack enclosed in a shielding can. I have an Aria Pro II ES-335 copy that used them. In theory, the shielding cans and shielded pickup wire should provide "100% coverage" from RFI in a wooden hollowbody guitar. Probably not practical to cover the inside of a hollow body guitar in copper foil. Given some peoples' OCD-leaning issues with shielding and noise, I'm surprised they're not de riguer for the Tones of Distinction people, (You know who you are) As others have pointed out, their benefit seems limited for the extra trouble (and SKILLz) needed to install/rework these. If one uses shielded wire to make the connections between pots, switches, and the output jack, then there's only a few short inches of un-shielded wire to act as a "noise antenna" inside the control cavity. Could you please explain in layman's terms, what the difference is between an "enclosed jack" and a "jack enclosed in a shielding can"? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators daddymack Posted March 18, 2022 Moderators Share Posted March 18, 2022 Google is your friend, if you use it....and a picture is worth a thousand words... What you have: Enclosed phono jack: 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jazzer2020 Posted March 21, 2022 Author Members Share Posted March 21, 2022 Well unfortunately I'm not out of the woods yet with this one. I swapped the output jack and though it seemed to fix things at first, sure enough with more playing the pops/crackles came back. So I tried swapping guitar cables and that didn't help. I have a suspicion where the problem might lie but want to wait until I hear from you folks first. By the way, just to let you know I'm not going crazy... I used the exact same amp and guitar cable with another guitar (another ES-175), and there were no pops/crackles whatsoever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members badpenguin Posted March 22, 2022 Members Share Posted March 22, 2022 Vol/tone pots. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators daddymack Posted March 22, 2022 Moderators Share Posted March 22, 2022 or bridge ground lead shorting...or a number of other things...that's the PITA with working on hollowbodies...just when you think you got everything stuffed back in perfect...the same problem comes up again. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jazzer2020 Posted March 24, 2022 Author Members Share Posted March 24, 2022 Yes it could be vol/tone pots or bridge grounding. I was thinking along the lines of the pickup as the problem. Something else just came up that might be related... I was having a pretty good session now (as far as pops/crackles etc.) but I noticed my G string was not balanced volume-wise to the rest. I figured it would be an easy fix. I got out my screw driver and raised the pickup screw under the G string. I know they should be raised a fraction at a time because the volume change should be immediately noticeable. But that wasn't the case. The screw position went from being one of the lowest to one of the highest and there was hardly any difference in volume! Can these pole adjustments just "go" after time? Is there a fix for them? It would really be nice to get a good balanced volume across all six strings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.