If you're a first-timer, a few tips:
The only dmage you can do to a female RCA is to overheat to where either the teflon sleeve that shields the hot from ground comes loose or, more commonly, solder flows over the hot onto ground. :wink:Plug a male in to sink some of the heat away. :wink:Use a 40 watt iron if you can or 750 degrees on a regulated station. More heat lets you get on and off before bad things happen. :thumb:Take care to mount the RCAs so the open side of the hot solder channel is up. Flow some solder into it, just enough to coat it and a little more, don't fill it. Place the bare wire on the solder and heat the wire and pin so the solder already in the pin flows onto the wire. :thumb:You don't need 4 separate grounds: before you tighten down the jacks mate the 2 ground tabs together and use 1 ground wire run through both. :thumb:The 3/8" bit you need to drill the holes will want to wander off your mark: drill a 1/8" hole first.
Jim's boards are tanks; I've changed wires and fixed mistakes several times and more w/o damaging the traces.
Be sure to get parts that have teflon chassis insulators. Best recommendation are Vampire CM Hex, nicely priced at 10.50/pair from Michael Percy
http://www.percyaudio.com/. The hex shape on the outside makes'm easy to mount and they're tough. While you're there, get some XLO 26 gauge chassis wire; takes very little heat to solder and sounds good, too.
A really neat way to tighten down the Vampires is to use a 1/2" socket driven by a large flat blade screwdriver (you're ratchet driver won't fit in the hole unless you have really deep socket).
Hope this helps and puts you at ease.
