Official Luthiers Forum!

This thread is dedicated to things that folks should not do with their guitars....

Please post pics of things that you see that are not a good idea.

Thanks!

I've always heard people say "put graphite in the nut slots" so the first one seems like a pretty good idea. The second one is frankly pure genius. I now understand why the "ball" end of strings are really "hoops".


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As long as the pencil is "vintage", say pre 1960's, it should work fine. Pencil wood was much harder then. It also accommodates theory of nut compensation.

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“ The meaning of life is to find your gift and the purpose of life is to give it away” Pablo Picasso

I personally think those are fine, but I do have to draw the line at bailing wire and chewing gum..... well maybe not if it is a good juicy fruit...

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

No pics, but I have heard it is a really bad idea to get cat pee inside your guitar. The smell never, ever comes out (or so I have heard).

I'm not sure about other kinds of pee, but I will take a leak of faith (see what I did there?) and say that avoiding all types of pee inside the guitar is a good idea.

I should have taken more pictures in my career..... I remember 2 guys who brought in a Peavey T-60 with the strings absolutely filthy, and soldered together in about a dozen places. And a guy who brought in a Warwick bass, someone tried to fix the broken peghead with a hot glue gun!

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Also should mention more about the guitar with the bridge pic above. Someone used finishing nails as an attempted to repair where the top had come loose from the sides. They countersank the nails and filled over them with wood filler. Also, someone used what looked like chewing gum to repair a hole in the side.

I don't have any pics but, back in the late 70's an older gent brought his old J 200 guitar in to have the fret edges filed smooth as he kept cutting his fingers when he played.
The guitar had all the frets from the fourth on up missing and the first three frets had Been ground flat and bicycle spokes were then soldered to the tops of the frets
He never played above the first position and as the first three frets would wear out he would pull the higher frets out to replace them, when he ran out of frets he cut up some bicycle spokes and you can guess the rest.
These could possibly have been the very first stainless steel frets, anyway I convinced him to let me refret the guitar and then he would have a complete set of new frets to be able to use up for the next 30 or so years. He agreed that that was the best solution , but he did mention that the spokes had been on the longest and didn't show any signs of wearing out
Cheers,
Cal

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Remember, there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers!

This is generally frowned upon.

David someone missed that Anthem install by this... much....

Here I learned, for those willing to make a real commitment to pickup selection, a rattle in a togle switch can be eliminated by simply forcing hot helt glue into it! Boom! done!

my all time fave ....

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

And ----it's adjustable!,
Mike

...And my all time favorite caption: "Tonebuckles". Man, I wish I'd thought of that.

That's just brilliant!
Once at my place of work they went through and filled computer usb ports with JB-Weld. Not kidding!

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

This mornings Question: What's the most reversible adhesive to keep the top on your bass?

OLF Tub-o-lard?

Answer: Gaffer's tape! (keeps you gigging )

A shockingly bad scribe around a bridge for finish removal from a not-inexpensive US classical maker. Needless to say, the bridge popped off. I'd expect this on a sub-300 dollar guitar, but not from a multi-thousand dollar guitar.

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Stay with the happy people.
--Reynolds Large

Look's Cedarish?

Yep, cedar.

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Stay with the happy people.
--Reynolds Large

WOW! I just had a student ask me if binding was really necessary. Now I know what to say: Absolutely NOT! Duct Tape is all you need.

Vintage, rotten 20 year old duct tape that the adhesive is dripping from the roll tends to sound better......

Not to be a troll.... but Dave and I have noticed that the only difference between WRC topped guitars that shed bridges are the ones with sloppy scoring through the fibers tend to shed bridges like in Thomas's excellent pic. The ones that were carefully scored tend to rip chunks of the top off outside the bridge foot print.... Both alternatives suck sadly.

I know, I know I built a lot with WRC too but in our experience when it sheds a bridge it likes to leave a goodly amount of itself with the bridge... WRC could learn a lot from Warren Buffett such as when you find yourself creating a hole in a guitar top, stop digging. Sorry for the creative license with Warren's quote...

Back to our regularly scheduled "Great Big Don't Do Thread.." . Let's see some more debacles please.

How about this? I'm sure you repair guys have seen worse but it was pretty shocking to me. It's my brother-in-law's 1950s vintage Kay arch top which I've threatened to repair. The original offer was to reproduce the original burst finish that was stripped off a few decades ago. I wanted to practice a hand-applied burst but it's impossible to overlook the neck joint and the worn out and missing frets.




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I don't think anyone would recommend these repairs/modifications/kluges, but apparently they worked for J. J. Cale on his Harmony.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

that is an amazing photo! I once had a young lady bring an acoustic Fender in that she painted flowers on and stuck in the oven to dry. Of course she burned the top to where it could never be repaired. We put a new top on it complete with bridge and she gave it back to her brother who was apparently so stoned that he didn't notice...(this was the early 70's when hippies were ubiquitous).