Stupidests accidents or ideas

[Coffee]

Thought we could maybe learn something from each others stupid mistakes with our guitars. Subject of this thread, the stupidest thing I ever did to my guitar by accident or on purpose.

Okay, I'll be first up.

I had a 12 string guitar that I absolutely loved. It wasn't the best instrument I'd owned by any means, but it was the first that I fell in love with. Don't even remember the brand name now.

Anyway, I had to make a trip from B.C. to Saskatchewan and decided to take the guitar, in the dead of winter mind you, at about - 30 F along for the ride. I decided to place the guitar back near the heat ducts in the back of my old VW van since it didn't heat really well, just to be safe. Yeah, right.

By the time I had hit Sask. the face of the guitar had pulled up from it's proper position about an inch and a half and the wooden bridge was about half seperated from the face. I'd cooked the stupid thing. I ended up throwing it away.

Moral of the story. Keep the guitar in an area where it will be at an average temperature and if it's really bad, back off the strings to relieve the pressure on the instrument.

[jaytee]

well....just this morning.....*sigh*

i get outta bed and my husband is all suckin up to me.....i knew something was wrong......
he tells me he put a huge scratch down the side of my guitar when he was bringing in his metal corner edges for our drywall....he was waitin for me to freak....but i know its part my fault....now im not sure if i can fix it.....its kinda deep....

lesson is....dont leave your guitar in a construction zone.....unless you wanna guilt your husband into buyin you a new one...haha just kidding...

--jt

[bobcat]

I once worked in a music store with a guy that was SOOOO stupid.....

He thought it would look really cool to decorate his guitar. So, to do this, he broke a mirror and glued the broken pieces all over the front of his guitar.

You can imagine what his arm looked like as he would strum across a bunch of broken glass!

We tried to tell him it wouldn't work! :D

[GuitarGuillermo]

Well, this isnt particularly stupid, but once i was playing my freinds electric, and i noticed that the top E string sounded horrible, like several steps sharp. So i started tuning it down, and i coulent notice any change. so i cranked it down a little more and there was still no change in the sound. so i really cranked it down and it still sounded the same. so i figured something must be wrong with it and i tried playing some different fretted notes on the string and they all sounded the same. So then i noticed that the frets were starting to seperate from the neck and that the string was stuck underneath one of the frets. has this happened to anyone?

[Ryeandcoke]

My first guitar (my baby) Came with a soft case......accident waiting to happen. One day, I'd just moved, and was putting my stereo speakers all around my room....one was placed on a window sill.....it fell, landing on my guitar, right where the neck met the body. For a while, i had a whammy bar on my acoustic!!!lol For about 6 months, I held it together with crazy glue and a c-clamp.....finally got it fixed. Lesson learned...GET A HARD CASE!!!!!!

[jaytee]

oh that reminds me of one...hehe...thanks rye...

really id like to give ALL the credit for this one to my husband....NO i dont blame EVERYTHING on him! but this was before we had met...haha....

he always played his grandmothers guitar....a nice old gibson LG1....we have it now as she willed it to him when she died...along with all the damage he did to it as a teenager...

one day he was in his room playing his stereo phenominally loud as hes known to do....and i mean louder than any normal person is capable of....dont ask how....cuz i wont tell... :)

anyways....the guitar was on the floor next to his dresser and the music was so loud the speaker vibrated right off the dresser and smashed the front of this wonderful old gibson acoustic...

he had it repaired by a luthier...and it still sounds sweet...thank god the neck wasnt damaged....but it was --><-- this close to unrepairable....it would be such a shame to let this guitar go....

lesson is.....if the music is so loud your speakers are moving with vibration....at least make sure your guitar is out of harms way....(and ummm...you might want to consider if its so loud you are damaging your hearing too...heehee)

--jt

[BluesPulp]

Haa, haa, haaaaaa. I could go on for hours about the stupid things I've done.

Daytona Florida, the day before the Daytona 500, 1972.
There were three bands that year. The first band was booed so loud it drowned out the music. The second band was awesome. We had the last show.
We did mostly stuff like Deep Purple, Ten Years After, Blue Oyster Cult, Humble Pie to name a few. We aslo had some original material.
I played lead guitar, but the guy who played second guitar, Davie Morris, was a good lead player in his own right. This was back in the days of fifteen to twenty minute songs. The people on LSD at the time like to relate and get in the groove of long songs. Anyway, we had one song called Slaughter the Angels and there was about a seven to ten minute guitar duel between me and Davie. Feedback, effects of all kinds, ripping and slashing. The state was about twenty feet off the ground and open on three sides. I played on the left side of the stage and Davie was on the right side of the thirty foot wide stage.
When the duel started our lighting man would let smoke go and colored lights would flash and twirl through the smoe. Davie and I began to advance on each other. We met near center stage and that's where the duel started. I'd play about twenty to thirty seconds, then Davie would mimic me and then take off on his own, and I'd mimic him. Who ever was playing would keep walking forward, then when the other played, he's advance, so we were back and forth across the whole stage. Something happened with those smoke canisters we rented. They didn't shut off and near the end of the duel we cound't see anything. Davie was playing and advanced on me and bumped right into me. I took a step back and fell off the stage.
No one knew it. Davie kept playing, then stopped so I could reply. I was laying on the ground. I knew my leg was broke and had my breath knocked outta me. The bass and drummer continued and Davie would call out to me with a few licks on his guitar. Finally the smoke was used up and the breeze blew the last of the smoke away and I as no where to be seen. I was yelling down there, at the bottom of the stage, behind a six foot plywood wall that kept the audience back. Finally they quit playing and someone heard me. I also had some cracked ribs and other things I don't remember right now. My guitar was dangling from the end of the stage by it's cord right above me. I knew it was gonna fall and impale me, but it didn't.
The next year we played at the Daytona five hundred again and just before we began a song with a duel in it, the stage crew brought me out a harness so if I wouldn't fall off again.
At the time I was really embarrassed about it. But it's funny now.
Morel, know where you are on stage at all times.

[Sandman_96707]

Great story BluesPulp, not the first time one of yours has been the highlight of my day.

[13noon]

This one time I was cleaning my room, so I moved my sword (yes I own a sword) over to the other side of the room so I could clean out under the sword stand. Instead of moving the whole sword stand I just moved the sword, leaning it on my dresser. Then, as you could guess, it fell over, leaving a huge gouge in my guitar. Luckily it was the handle, cause I'm not stupid enough to leave a sword pointing up. :D
So anyway, the moral of the story is: NEVER CLEAN YOUR ROOM!!
Seriously though, leave eight pounds of steel as far away from your guitar as you can get it.

~13noon

P.S. I did not nor do I have any intention of fixing my guitar. It didn't affect its playability and it gives it this "used" kind of character.

[slaughteredsoul]

Dont lend your guitar to your friends,no matter how close and dear they are to you.:rolleyes: