Post your worst project/experiment gone wrong!

[steve.h]

I'll go first:

My first guitar was an off-white Fender Squire Affinity Strat. When I got it, I loved it, but I soon craved more distortion and such, and so when I found a random pickup in my parents' basement, I decided that I'd cut a hole in the pickguard and wire it in! And by cut, I mean drag a soldiering iron through it!

[WhiteStrat]

Oh man, that's hilarious! I wish I had pics of mine. My first electric guitar was a Global Les Paul copy from the early/mid 70's--I was twelve when I got it. When I was about twenty I decided I wanted a punky little rectangular guitar--sort of Steinberger meets Bo Diddley.

So I took my jigsaw and chopped the three sides off. Then, upon realizing that it wasn't a solid slab, I tried to use putty to fill the now visible gaps between the plywood crap filler and the "carved" top. When that didn't work, I again grabbed my jigsaw, and cut three side panels out of 1/4 plywood, glued & nailed them on the sides of the hacked up body, and tried to put so much black paint on the mess that everything would smooth out.

It didn't. I threw it away.

Problem is, that was my first. And my dad helped me buy it when I couldn't afford it. The older I got the more special that memory became to me--man, I wished I'd kept it!! So I started hunting sunburst Global Les Paul copies on eBay. You can only see so much in an eBay pic--so I've had to buy three before I ended up with one JUST LIKE mine--same shade sunburst, same script logo, same binding, etc.

The original cost me $150 in '78. I've now spent about $800 buying, shipping and rebuilding 3 more just to undo my jigsaw damage and try to recapture the memory...

Thanks for the thread and letting me ramble in it!

[steve.h]

Originally Posted by WhiteStrat

Oh man, that's hilarious! I wish I had pics of mine. My first electric guitar was a Global Les Paul copy from the early/mid 70's--I was twelve when I got it. When I was about twenty I decided I wanted a punky little rectangular guitar--sort of Steinberger meets Bo Diddley.

So I took my jigsaw and chopped the three sides off. Then, upon realizing that it wasn't a solid slab, I tried to use putty to fill the now visible gaps between the plywood crap filler and the "carved" top. When that didn't work, I again grabbed my jigsaw, and cut three side panels out of 1/4 plywood, glued & nailed them on the sides of the hacked up body, and tried to put so much black paint on the mess that everything would smooth out.

It didn't. I threw it away.

Problem is, that was my first. And my dad helped me buy it when I couldn't afford it. The older I got the more special that memory became to me--man, I wished I'd kept it!! So I started hunting sunburst Global Les Paul copies on eBay. You can only see so much in an eBay pic--so I've had to buy three before I ended up with one JUST LIKE mine--same shade sunburst, same script logo, same binding, etc.

The original cost me $150 in '78. I've now spent about 800 buying, shipping and rebuilding 3 more just to undo my jigsaw damage and try to recapture the memory...

Thanks for the thread and letting me ramble in it!

Haha oh man that sounds amazing! Hahaha

[ggunn]

In 1968 I bought a 1963 (or so) Gibson Melody Maker for 50 bucks. It was mint, with that deep cherry red finish, one single coil pickup and wrap around bridge. In my teenaged wisdom, I decided that it needed improving, so I got out a hammer and screwdriver (I didn't have a wood chisel) and pounded out enough wood to install a pair of humbuckers and more pots. I had a tunamatic and LP style tailpiece professionally installed (that was beyond my rudimentary woodworking skills), and after that was done, I decided that it would look better brown, so I sanded the red finish off and had a friend who did furniture work refinish it in brown polyurethane.

All in all, it doesn't look that bad, but oh, man, I wish I'd left well enough alone!

[steve.h]

Originally Posted by ggunn

In 1968 I bought a 1963 (or so) Gibson Melody Maker for 50 bucks. It was mint, with that deep cherry red finish, one single coil pickup and wrap around bridge. In my teenaged wisdom, I decided that it needed improving, so I got out a hammer and screwdriver (I didn't have a wood chisel) and pounded out enough wood to install a pair of humbuckers and more pots. I had a tunamatic and LP style tailpiece professionally installed (that was beyond my rudimentary woodworking skills), and after that was done, I decided that it would look better brown, so I sanded the red finish off and had a friend who did furniture work refinish it in brown polyurethane.

All in all, it doesn't look that bad, but oh, man, I wish I'd left well enough alone!

Post some pictures!

[mikemorgan]

I bought a one-off Tom Holmes Custom guitar in the late '70's and campaigned that axe well into the late 80's. It started separating at one of the body-blank joints so I stripped her down, oiled her up, and played her au-natural for three more years. Then I decided to paint her white (like ZZ Tops" furry guitars). After the paint job, I hand-dipped the pickups in a light blue latex rubber designed to coat the handles on your hand tools. Needless to say, I ended up destroying the Tom Holmes hand wound pickups that defined my "sound" for two decades. (sniff)

[Roguetitan]

Originally Posted by steve.h

I'll go first:

My first guitar was an off-white Fender Squire Affinity Strat. When I got it, I loved it, but I soon craved more distortion and such, and so when I found a random pickup in my parents' basement, I decided that I'd cut a hole in the pickguard and wire it in! And by cut, I mean drag a soldiering iron through it!

Going for that EVH Frankenstein look Eh?

[steve.h]

I ended up getting a new (used) pickguard from a guy, and a single-coil-sized humbucker from my buddy for free (fixed his guitar), so it actually looks and sounds pretty decent now! It definitely needs some fret polishing though...

POST MORE! No need to be embarrassed, tell all!

[andydeedpoll]

Originally Posted by steve.h

my buddy for free (fixed his guitar)

Presumably you didn't tell him what you'd just done to your own guitar?

Andrew.

[steve.h]

Haha, I forgot to mention this was almost 10 years later that I got around to getting the guitar back to playable condition :P