New Arrival

[Billyboygretsch]

This arrived in the post today next Wednesday is my birthday wonder what will arrive then

[Billyboygretsch]

Strangely this has a non standard size Jack socket. I remember the early Artistes had a smaller socket and wonder if these were fitted to the bass. The socket however looks in good condition. Will have to fit a 1/4" socket. Shame as would have been nice to keep it original. Wonder if there is an adapter

[dusty fretz]

Regardless of string number, all the earliest Burns models came with that mini jack socket as standard, because the normal 1/4" equivalent was a rare commodity here at the time. Burns' original choice back then has long since been a 'bastard' size and I've never come across an appropriate adaptor, so I'm afraid an update is inevitable.

[cockroach]

Just a thought Bill..

You may need to check under the scratchplate to ensure there is enough depth in the routing of the body to fit a wider and longer normal 1/4 inch jackplug when plugged into the new jack socket- as I recall, those early Burns bodies were not that thick (I had an Artiste 6 string)

I have seen adaptor plugs with a small plug for stereo use which enable a 1/4 inch stereo jack plug to be adapted (as for headphones) but these are usually stereo wired although could work in mono for a guitar connection.(I still have one somewhere)

[noelford]

A quick Internet search finds that Gear4Music do a mono quarter inch jack to mono mini jack cable for under £4.

http://www.gear4music.com/G4M/Mono-Mini ... oCMirw_wcB

[RayL]

The small plug and socket used on the early Burns guitars was not a metric 3.5 mm. It was a good old Imperial three-sixteenths of an inch (about 4.5 mm). Here's a quick pic with a Burns-style plug in the middle. For comparison I've added a standard quarter-inch plug above and a 3.5 mm plug below.

Burns early jack plug.JPG (159.13 KiB) Viewed 9428 times

This is not the plug from my Artist, which has a black bakelite casing.

[RayL]

Jim Burns' reason for using the smaller jack plug may not have been due to availability - after all, every other guitar and all guitar amps at that time used quarter-inch so it was not uncommon.

The reason may have been, as Cockroach points out, that a quarter-inch jack would mean routing perilously close to the back of the guitar body. Measuring my early Artist, the body is only 1 3/8" thick. The stem of a standard jack plug is 1 1/4" long. Jim Burns may have been 'playing safe' to avoid scrapping perfectly good guitar bodies because of a slightly mis-set router. By comparison, a modern Burns guitar is 1 7/8" thick (and a Stratocaster is similar).

That brings up another thought. Was there a standard thickness for an old-fashioned mahogany pub counter? Paul D. has mentioned to me in the past that Jim would make guitar bodies from reclaimed pub counters.

Could someone with, say, a 1961 or 1962 Vibra Artiste (with standard jack socket from new) , measure the thickness of the body? Is it thicker than the 1 3/8" of my early Artist?

[Billyboygretsch]

I have measured several Artiste and Sonic bodies between 1960 - 62 and they all come up 1 3/8". The routing depth is 1".
You would then have the depth of scratchplate and nut for output takes it to 1 7/16" so would just fit. As stated by Ray perhaps variations in early routings was a bit haphazard so they used the mini as a safeguard. I hated that little plug.
In any case the latter Artistes were fitted with the standard Jack which just about worked. I did have a Burns once where an extra thickness of scratchplate had been added under the socket head I guess to increase the thickness.
The raised bulbous switch again was raised in order to fit into the routing. A Strat switch would fit in this but not on a flat scratchplate
My other Artiste bass has the standard 1/4". I think I am going to be safe enough to install a 1/4" one.
May have to put in some research on pub counters will take my guage with me starting tonight !

[Billyboygretsch]

Looks like Fender copied some ideas from the Artiste Bass with this model

[Billyboygretsch]

This is the infamous 3/16" socket. Wanna sell a plug Ray ! Good nic though