Almost a 1.99 jack grabber

[tadej bratkovic]

First of all kudos to Frank who designed the jack gripper with the knurled tip and partially gave the idea to this crude invention that was unveiled this later afternoon in my cold garage. I was doing my best to come up with a same tool without ordering it overseas, but today I found even faster solution.

I used to use regular construction sleeve anchors with an eyelet bolt for these purposes, but since the jacks aren't metric, but most of our stuff is, it's hard to find new ones after they get destroyed. So I decided to make one.

I am not going into details with this one as it is pretty basic and self-explainatory. You just remove the tip from a regular guitar jack, remove the plastic bushing, drill a hole through the tip and tap it, then use a screw long enough to drive the tip backwards into the sleeve itself. Cut the sleeve with a dremel. I recommend doing a trial run first and try to expand the sleeve dry. Once that is done the end of the sleeve gets a slightly bell-shaped edge - grind that on a grinding wheel to a slight chamfer to avoid scarring output sockets that only need tightening :)

It is self-locking and is easily removed too, because the walls on a guitar jack are thick enough not to remain expanded when you loosen the screw. It is best to stay midways in terms of depth , otherwise the sleeve only gets pushed forward into the socket if it sticks out on the backside.

It can't fall through the hole either, because the grounding ring has a greater diameter than the OD of the socket itself. The only disadvantage is that in most situations it can't be used for fishing out the jack itself, but combining tools has never killed anyone :)

[Frank Ford]

Way to go!   It especially makes sense to avoid international shipping on things you can make for yourself.