Acoustic guitar input jack - Wood cover?

[Kabeer]

Hi there,

I'm looking at installing a K&K Mini pickup in an acoustic guitar but I do not like the look of the metal input jack sticking out of the guitar body.

I like the look of only wood and horn end pins.

This is a typical K&K mini end pin jack: http://www.bluestarmusic.com/assets/...tall_maple.jpg

Is there a wooden alternative? Or a wooden cap?


Thanks

[emmsone]

You could ask your luthier to install a flush mounted jack alongside or underneath your strap button instead of the typical endpin/strap button type jack, then you could easily glue a small wooden button onto a spare jack plug to fill and hide it further.

David

[Tim McKnight]

I had a local machine shop make one for one of our customers. I glued up a block of wood (Ebony) and then glued a dowel to the block. The dowel was used to chuck the block of ebony in an engine lathe. The machinist copied a standard metal jack cover outer profile but he wasn’t able to cut the internal threads in the wood cover. He bored a hole in the back side of the wood jack cover, then he turned down a metal jack cover into a round female threaded bushing which was then glued inside the ebony cover. It worked out great but took some ingenuity.

[Guitars44me]

Originally Posted by Tim McKnight

I had a local machine shop make one for one of our customers. I glued up a block of wood (Ebony) and then glued a dowel to the block. The dowel was used to chuck the block of ebony in an engine lathe. The machinist copied a standard metal jack cover outer profile but he wasn’t able to cut the internal threads in the wood cover. He bored a hole in the back side of the wood jack cover, then he turned down a metal jack cover into a round female threaded bushing which was then glued inside the ebony cover. It worked out great but took some ingenuity.

That is really cool Tim! thank you for sharing. Do I sense a biz opportunity?
Cheers
Paul

[Tim McKnight]

Originally Posted by Guitars44me

That is really cool Tim! thank you for sharing. Do I sense a biz opportunity?
Cheers
Paul

For someone perhaps? Its a lot of work to do one at a time but I am sure that some enterprising person would find a way to shave off time and make it a profitable venture. The only draw back to using wood is that wood can't take the abuse of metal, especially on such a vulnerable location as the bottom of the guitar. One abrupt bump and the wood cover is likely to split off a chunk and quite possibly render the strap button useless.

[Kabeer]

Thank you guys.
And apologies if this is in the wrong forum section.