Jack sockets quite often present problems, they wear out and the contacts become loose, this one was proving to be tricky on several counts….

It keeps falling out as the locking plate’s rather bent and twisted out of shape and isn’t locking into the wood.  There’s also a third wire, I don’t know what that’s all about

Looking closely the earth it’s rather long and there are some loose ends of wire which could cause a short circuit.  Since the spring is rather tired I’m going to replace the socket so I’ll tidy up the soldering.The third wire is the earth from the bridge, an odd place to solder it but what the hell, does the job.

To keep the locking plate in place I put a couple of screws inside the body so it’s got something to lock against.The trouble is now the cup wouldn’t quite fit so I had to grind down the screw heads a little.Hopefully now it’ll stay in place with a good connection (once I put the locking nut on of course).While the scratchplate was off I gave the pots a clean with some switch cleaner.With the electrics sorted all it needs now is a standard setup..

No.1: Neck set.Just a little high so a turn or 2 on the truss-rod.No. 2: Action at the 12th fret…Again just a little high so drop the bridge a little.With the outside strings done I’ll check the heights of the other strings to match the radius of the fretboard.No. 3: The action at the 1st fret…

Once again just a little high so I cut each string slot just a little deeper…

No. 4: The intonation.  This was a long way off which would have made it sound rather out of tune higher up the neck.

No. 5: The pickup heights.  They look OK but the only way to tell is to plug it in and listen to it.I’ve never really been a fan of the Telecaster Custom but I rather like this one, the skulls and bones have been done well and rather suit it, I particularly like the glow in the dark one.