Disaster stories

[syo***]

The idea of for this thread came to me about an hour ago. About a half an hour after I dropped a screwdriver on a shiny new semi-hollow guitar (leaving a nice 4mm divet on the top).

I wonder if any of you have any good (bad) stories of a mod gone wrong? Or am I the only one?

My story...
I was swapping out pickups and had the guitar well covered (I thought). Screwdriver fell head first and found the only (very small) open space in the cover. My first inclination was to blame my stupidity. But after giving it some thought, decided it was an act of God since this made me feel a little better. The one
good thing out of it all is that these pickups are a perfect match for this guitar. It has been transformed into something beautiful yet dangerous (with a 4mm divet on top)

That's my story. Anyone else?

[FrankenFretter***]

Mine wasn't a disaster by any means, but when I was changing pickups on an SG this weekend, I managed to scratch up the finish on the back somehow, even though I have my entire work bench covered in black fleece (synthetic, not the sheep's wool fleece). It's not terribly noticeable, but that finish was completely flawless before that moment. Since it's the back of the guitar, I don't think it's something I'll worry about too much. The scratches are less than two inches long.

[marnold***]

Mine was a classic "issue" with my old Floyd. I was attempting to relocate one of the springs with a needle nose pliers when my hand slipped and I put a divot in the paint. Thankfully it wasn't big and was on the back. I was much more careful with my Jackson. I also located a staple my wife didn't take care of properly when she reupholstered one of our chairs. Unfortunately I found it by putting a two-inch scratch on the top (as in the part that faces my head, not the front where the pickups are) of my Floyd. I wasn't amused.

[Spudman***]

I was recently building cables for the PA and as I was trimming the rubber sheath with an exacto knife I did an unthinkable blunder and pushed the blade into a finger on my left hand. Yes, the hand I had to play guitar with the next two nights. It was incredibly painful both nights and the strings cut right into it all night long.

It was a very good lesson learned in thinking ahead. You'd think I would have learned after I did exactly the same thing Marnold did to one of my guitars though. I don't know what it is. Maybe I get distracted or it's just a quick brain fart. Sure sucks having to look at your mistake for all of eternity.

[syo***]

Sure sucks having to look at your mistake for all of eternity.

Truly spoken.

It's one thing when my wife points out something stupid I have done. I can always slough it off (or even blame her...). But when my guitars/gear are involved they are a constant reminder of my stupidity (come to think of it, just like my wife...).

[Ch0jin]

Well so far I've been more careful than the previous owners of three of my guitars (the fourth was new) so I can't say I've got a guitar horror story, but I did manage to mix up my 9V leads to my pedal board once and plug a negative ground supply into one of my positive ground Ge Fuzz's, yeah, the one I left the reverse polarity protection diode out of to see if it effected the tone....Kerblammo, fuzz destroyed. What made it hurt worse is I'm a damn electronic engineer, AND I built the pedals, so I -really- should have known better. (shakes fist at beer) Now, two of them have no DC socket and the third, the blown up (but now rebuilt) one has it's socket disconnected internally.

Woah, oh wait, I have another HUGE one!

How about being GIVEN a -very- rare 1960's era tube amp before I knew anything about tube amps electronically, or as collectors pieces, or as tonal nirvana, and upon discovering it had a burnt out power transformer, ripped out all the internals bar the OT and built a kind of JCM800 hybrid into it on perf. Along the way carving up the face plate too as for some reason I decided I wanted extra switches on the front, those huge rectangular ones....

Sure it works now and it didn't when I was given it, but it wasn't that long after that I realized my mistake and I've been kicking myself over it ever since. I've been in touch with the manufacturer, but given they were a boutique Australian company that stopped making amps like 40 years ago, they have almost no information on it

At least I left the 1960's 4x12 cab loaded with original, perfect condition alnico speakers alone. (and I still use it almost every day, sure sounds different to the single 12" Sheffield in my Peavey)

[kiteman]

I put the SD Blackouts in my Carvin DC127. Simple job but the holes for the pots were too small for the pots that came with the pups. No biggie, I just got my drill and the right bit to do the job. I started drilling and it felt like I was drilling concrete and broke a chunk of paint at the hole. Then another hole.

When I put the knobs on they covered it up. Duh!

[oldguy]

(Early yrs.) Drank too much at an outdoor party and decided to "toss" my Gibson Flying V to the audience to catch at the end of the night. Guess nobody wanted it, it hit the grass and cracked the headstock.
(Middle yrs.) Working as a meatcutter in a store, I was cleaning the slicer and cut the tip off the index finger of my left hand. I played that night, Sat. and Sun. with a finger brace and dressing on the finger. Did a lot of playing with the other three fingers. Learned to use my pinky that weekend.
(Later yrs.) Decided to adjust the truss rod on my Tele by removing the pickguard and carefully going over the top of the neck pickup with the screwdriver. The chrome pickup cover now has a small, neat dent in it.
Look at Teles in pawn shops.......you'll see this often. Makes me feel a little better that I'm not the only one who thought it'd work.....

[Katastrophe]

All my "mod disasters" happened when I let someone else do the work.

I had a bad knob on my Ibanez that wouldn't come off, and the tech put a .5" scratch in the front of my guitar.

I paid someone to replace a worn nut in my first electric guitar, and they cracked the neck with a flathead screwdriver.

[mainestratman]

I once zapped myself pretty good on the innards of my old Peavey Triumph 120... I still have no idea why I was poking around a charged circuit with a metal screw driver.. lol

[navvid]

I repaired a friend's Peavy Delta Blues (it's basically a Classic 30), and when it didn't work at first, I opened it up in frustration and started poking around haphazardly around the power supply area. The electric shock woke me up a bit though.

The repair was fine, it was a broken fuse.

I do not find electric shocks entirely unpleasant...

[gray77]

I had a friend grab my guitar and play it once and he leaned it against an amp and somehow dropped a small mixer on the back of it. Nice gouges all the way to the wood. I wasn't there at the time, so he just put it back into the case!!! I'm pretty sure several threats were made if he ever touched my guitar again, because accidents like that were known from him.

[333maxwell]

I've done all kinds of goofy stuff I probably shouldn't of..

Still doing goofy stuff.. it's only equipment.. you screw with it..

Leo or Less would of NEVER created what they did if they stopped every time they screwed something up.

---

I think my most spendy (yet deliberate, it wasn't a screw up, except by doing it I screwed up) action was to take my original run gold top (worth thousands and thousands on todays market) and strip that ugly gold paint off it..

It was a much better looking guitar when I was finished with it (well, there is another story about that, for another time)... WONDERFUL grain under that icky gold paint..

Thereby reducing an ugly guitar that would be worth thousands and thousands and thousands (seriously) and turning it into a nice looking guitar worth about 500 bucks for parts..

Live and learn..

No regrets.. it was ugly.. I still cringe when I see Gold Tops.. not because I devalued mine, but because they are ugly and look like crap on stage.. *L*

[drunkinminer]

I made what could have been a BIG disater when I changed the neck plate and the bridge on my Tele. After I changed the neck plate I proceeded to put on a 3 saddle bridge. The thing was I could not for the life of me figure out why the screws were so hard to get in. Anyway needless to say after a lot of elbow grease I got the bridge in. When I was cleaning up I couldn't figure out what the screws that actually belong to the bridge belonged to. So I just put them away. I go outside for a Cig (I know nasty habit but taking steps to quit) then the horror hits I realize why the screws were so hard to get in. I used the neck screws. Then I thought did the screws go through the body am I going to be able to get them out. anyway I got the neck screws out without a problem and put glue and toothpicks in the hole and all was good.

I'm guessing it didn't help that I was fairlly new to modding when it happened but as they say "Live and learn"