Learn how to make your guitar and pedalboard cables like a pro!

Today, we are going to see together how to make jack cables like a pro!

The big advantage of making your cables yourself is that it will cost you less than buying prepared cables. Plus, you can customize them! It will allow you to have an elegant and perfectly wired board.
But beware, a badly made cable will be a real pain for your sound! You will therefore have to equip yourself seriously and follow our instructions.
Of course, there is not only one way to do it, at least what we present you is the one that we put into practice for the jacks that we sell already made.
Also, we will not be held responsible in case of error, mishandling, material or personal damage while following this tutorial.

presentation of the bench

We’ll start by listing the tools you’ll need. You will need a strong pair of cutting pliers to cut your cable to the right length. Then to strip your cable, we suggest a multifunction stripper that will allow you to strip everything, and a scalpel. If you are making pancake patches, you will also need a PH2 Phillips screwdriver.

Then we will have to solder! The minimum to have is a soldering iron and some tin. A 3rd hand will also be necessary to hold the cable and the connector while you solder! If you want to work in better conditions, we also offer a lot of soldering accessories. It will make things much more comfortable.

To encourage you to get into DIY, we propose you this pack, which contains all the tools above, plus a replacement iron tip and a lead free tip refresher wax for 99€. It’s an investment, but it will pay for itself if you have to wire your whole pedalboard! And the tools will still be useful, for many other things!

If you’ve never soldered before, you can take a look at this article as well, it will help you a lot:

apprendre à souder comme un « pro » !

After the tools, you’ll need cable and jacks! We will teach you how to make several types of cables in this article. So we will tell you in each part which cables and connectors are the most suitable according to what you want to do. Together we will make a guitar cable, a patch for pedals, and a special patch for switchers.

And of course, you will be able to find all the material you need on our website!

preparing the cables

First, we will see how to prepare and strip your cable in the right way. It is the same process for all the connectors we will see in this article. For mono cables, we use two different refs from Sommercable. The Spirit LLX which is more suitable for guitar cables, and the Spirit XXL, which is more suitable for pedalboard patches. They are among the cables with the best performance on the market. With this, you won’t have problems with treble loss and noise!

The first step will be to cut the cable to the right length, simply with a pair of wire cutters. So far nothing complicated! We advise you to cut the cable 1 or 2 cm longer than the length you want.

Then comes a slightly more delicate part, we’ll start stripping the cable. For this, we will use the coaxial cable stripper of our stripping pliers. The goal will be to tighten the cable inside (not too hard) and to turn it. It should only cut the outer sheath of the cable without cutting the ground braid, as shown in the picture. You will feel a slight cracking sensation when you reach the ground braid, that’s where you have to stop!

It takes a little bit of practice, but then you will be able to chain the cables quickly and easily! We advise you to first take a piece of cable to test and practice on it. You have to remove the outer sheath on about 1cm.

Once it’s done, we’re going to take off the ground braid and come to twist it on the side. Without forcing too much so as not to tighten the internal braid of the cable. If you make a patch of less than 60cm, we advise you to twist the ground on each end in opposite directions as on the picture. This way the connectors will be in the same direction when the cable will be finished.

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Then, with the scalpel, we’ll continue to strip the cable by removing the black sheath. It must be removed as close as possible to the ground braid. But we leave a little bit of it as you can see on the picture to avoid the white part to be completely torn off.

Then, with the stripping pliers on the 20AWG or 0.8mm size, we will remove the white sheath on only a few millimeters. By removing the end of the sheath, you can turn it on itself at the same time, it will twist the core of the cable.

the connectors

Let’s start with the connectors! You have the choice between 5 different connectors depending on the use you will make of them.

premium connectors for guitar cables

We offer you 2 different connectors to make your guitar cable: one straight and one angled. It’s up to you to see what you need! Straight connectors usually work everywhere. Angled connectors can be useful to fit in some boards or guitars to save space, and not have a big connector sticking out. But beware of Stratocaster and Telecaster which are not always adapted to angled connectors !

We’ll start by opening the connectors. You must have all the parts you see in the pictures.

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For the straight connector, we will pass the end of the connector and the cable clamp around the cable. Otherwise we will not be able to pass them once the connector is soldered. Then we prepare the cable as we saw in the previous chapter. For the angled connector, it is the same thing, and we also pass the cable through the hole in the connector.

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We will start with the straight connector. Use the 3rd hand to hold the cable and the connector, touching the ground braid with the outer tongue of the connector. As shown in the picture.

If it’s the first time you’re holding a soldering iron, stop everything and read this article !!!
Otherwise, let’s go ! We solder the ground braid. Then we bend the cable so that the core of the cable fits into the central pin of the connector. And we solder it too, making a short and fast soldering to avoid melting the white sheath. If it doesn’t work, don’t bother, let it cool down for a few seconds and start again.

It’s done! Don’t close the connector right away, wait 5-10min for it to cool down. Then when you have soldered the 2 sides of your cable, we will do a test before closing them!

We move on to the angled connector! We are going to bend the small tongue almost at 90° as on the pictures. Then insert the core of the cable in it, making at the same time the ground braid and the big tongue at the bottom of the connector touch. Be careful, the end of the ground braid must not touch the tongue of the tip! If the braid is too long, do not hesitate to cut a few millimeters.

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You hold it with the 3rd hand, and solder! First the ground braid, taking care that your iron does not touch the cable sheath. There is not much space, it is better to go in several times not to heat the sheath too much. Then solder the core to the tip’s tongue.

Same thing, don’t close the connector, we’ll test the cable before!

the pancake connector for pedalboard patch cables

For our pedalboard patches, we usually use pancake connectors. They are ideal for connecting 2 pedals together because they are flatter than traditional angled connectors. This allows to bring the pedals closer together on the board and save space!

If you have a switcher on your board, we advise you to check the connectors in the next chapter. They will surely be more adapted! And if you need stereo patches, we also have the same connectors in stereo! We invite you to have a look at the other article on mini jacks, stereo jacks, XLR et RCA cables to learn how to solder them.

Come on, let’s start! First, we will remove the 2 screws of the connector to open it, preferably with a PH2 Phillips screwdriver. Then take the 3rd hand, and put the connector in one clip, and the cable in the other.

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The core of the cable must be placed in the hole of the left tongue. Be careful not to press it too much so that it never touches the connector frame! As on the pictures.

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And we move on to soldering! The most important thing is to do a brief and quick soldering, because the white sheath can melt very quickly, and let the core touch the frame. If it doesn’t work, don’t try harder! Don’t hesitate to stop, let it cool down a bit, and start again.

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Then we will solder the ground braid. We are going to put it as much as possible on the right side against the frame. Then heat with the iron without putting tin at first. It is necessary that the braid and the frame are very hot so that the tin flows correctly. When it is hot, we put a little tin, not too close to the sheath so as not to melt it. Then we spread it with the iron from the center to the end of the braid.

The tin must be well spread out against the braid and the frame. If it makes little balls, it means that you did not heat it up long enough before putting the tin on. If it is not spread out enough and the tin overflows from the frame, you will not be able to close the connector again.

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Once it’ s done, you have finished one side of your jack! Let it cool for 5-10min without touching it to avoid burning yourself, and don’t close it right away. We’ll do some tests before. If you have other jacks to do, you can start doing one side in the meantime, and do the second sides afterwards.

connectors for switchers

For those who like big boards with a switcher, these connectors will be more suitable. Since pancake connectors are wider, they do not necessarily fit with the many I/O jacks of a switcher. Nothing prevents you from making a mix and putting a switcher connector on one side of the cable, and a pancake on the other!

We sell them in straight or angled format, to fit all kind of boards!

We will start by opening the connector by unscrewing the black part. Inside we will find a piece of transparent plastic sheath.

We will slide in the right order the black frame of the connector on the right direction, then the transparent sheath. Otherwise we won’t be able to put them anymore when the jack will be soldered on both sides! No need to put the black sheath, the cable doesn’t go through it, and so the connector will take less space. Then we will prepare the cable as we saw in the first part.

Then, we carefully insert the cable into the connector, making sure that the core touches the small tongue of the connector and the ground braid touches the golden frame. Do not try to pass the core through the hole of the tongue, it is too small and may fray the core.

Finally, we solder! As for the pancake, we have to do a very short soldering on the core of the cable to avoid melting the white sheath. And heat the ground braid enough so that the tin spreads well over it. Then tighten the connector ring around the cable so that it doesn’t move anymore!

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testing the cables

Now that your connectors are soldered, let’s test the cable! We can test it with the ohm-meter to see if it conducts well where it should, but the safest is the cable tester!

The advantage of this kind of tester is that you plug your cable into it, then you can twist your cable in all directions to make sure it always stays conductive! As soon as a micro cut is detected, even extremely short, a led will light up on the tester. Something you won’t see with an ohm-meter!

We’re going to do a first test before closing your connectors, to make sure that the signal passes where it should. On the pancake, we’ll elevate the cable to make sure the signal doesn’t cut.

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Then we close the connector and totrture the cable in all directions. If the leds that indicate a false contact do not light up, you have made a perfect cable!

There you go, now you can make your own cables and patches yourself!

don’t want do it yourself? we’re here!

And if you still don’t feel like getting started, we also sell a whole range of patches and jacks already made, hand assembled in our workshops. You’re sure to find the cable you’re looking for!