Vintage That Needs to Go Away: Fender, FIX THE STRAT OUTPUT JACK!

 At least once every 2 weeks or so, I have to give a little speech about how a student needs to make sure they keep the nut tightened on the output jack of their Fender What-ever-Caster.

Pure Evil!

 They put a flat washer under the nut, which is useless and obviously does not work.  For the uninitiated:

 The nut works it's way loose as you plug the cable in/out, and move it around.  I'd guess that after 2 months of  use is when they start to loosen, at which point depending how much and how aggressive you plug the cable into and out of your guitar, the two wires soldered to the jack under the jack plate twist around and around..

 Until one breaks, and the guitar stops working.  Sometimes one is near a music store that can repair it.  Sometimes it's maybe only $35 or so to fix, but closer to a standard bench repair fee of $75 is possible.   At least a week will be lost, maybe more.

 That's presuming the student/Stratocaster owner even knows this has happened and CAN be repaired.  How many people just stopped playing guitar because this happened to their Squire Stratocaster after a few months?  What impact does this have to Fender and other brands for people that end up never staying with it and buying more gear?

 This has been a scourge forever.  The "phono jack" is a design left over from literally 1948 or so, and really can be traced to about 1877.  It's primitive, inelegant, and failure prone.

 I can think of a few better ways of doing it, but I don't have money to patent and manufacture such a thing.  Fender, though - there's no excuses.  Why they continue to use this idiotic part is beyond me, aside from it's sheer cheapness.

 They could easily improve it a lot: simply use a serrated washer, or put a dab of Loctite on the nut.  Or both.  Either nobody at Fender has thought of this as an issue and a fix, or they just don't care.

 Until then, I'll continue to have to waste a student's lesson time explaining they need to keep the stupid nut tight, and that the shorting-noise they're hearing is the result of the jack being loose, and that when it fails they've got to get it fixed.  Ridiculous.

Why Doesn't Fender Fix Input Jacks on Strat-style Guitars?

I've seen a lot of guitars, and how they age.

The number one problem I see is that the input jacks on Strats go bad.   The nut comes loose, the jack itself twists around, and ultimately breaks a wire going to it, or the component itself.

Fender is a funny company.  They've sold untold thousands of that classic model guitar, and it's seemingly infinite variations.   Which is why I find it remarkably ironic - and dumb - they don't take the initiative to fix something they have to know is broke!

It can't be because they're "preserving a classic design" - because frak knows they've changed it enough times.  I can think of many simple ways they could easily fix the situation in tooling, and while it might seem expensive to make a completely "new" part, it would be smart:

• they would set a precendent in the industry, that is besotted with countless uses of that same dumb design;


• it would be an obvious improvement pros would recognize;


• it would prevent the syndrome of a beginner guitarist, having purchased or been given one of their cheaper models from basically quitting because "the guitar is broke" (and likewise, not buying anymore Fender products)


• it would prevent people like myself, guitar teachers, from having to explain why their $120 cheapo Strat needs maybe a $50 bench fee to resolder a wire on a $.10 part.

I know I will be explaining this to many people in the future.  It won't make sense to them.   It's like GM using the same bolt for a common auto part since 1956, that always works loose and breaks, and never fixing it.   For the longivity of a company that manufactures something for retail, that may not be a good idea from a QC perspective.