The First Cut is the Deepest....(Guitarist Group Therapy)

[DuaLeaD]

Welcome to my all-purpose thread about sharing the first time you dinged up a guitar in your collection that you particularly liked.

 

Here's one off the top of my head:

 

Just a few weeks ago my snow white Jackson Rhoads V RR24 (their primo version of their Rhoads line) with Floyd Rose Vibrato arrived. I decided to take it to *shudders* Guitar Center and have some fun. After I bought my favorite Clayton 0.63 picks and some strings, I decided to kill some time and check out random amps. I made my way to the back of the store, passing some 14 year old who was desecrating "Crazy Train" and turned down an aisle of Vox amps (a fatal mistake!). As I was trying to make my way down the aisle, the top fin of my V got sliced by a retardedly positioned amp that was out too far. Those aisles seem way too narrow in my opinion. Luckily the cut was maybe a half a cm and was on the black bevel part near the tail end. You can't really see it but so much for a perfect guitar. I usually enjoy that condition for a good few months....(I try to be uber careful, make fun of me if you want hehe).

[ALIEN8]

Here's a good one for you...

 

I have a 3 guitar stand, the flat linear type, that supports the guitars along the bottom and leaning on the neck. In the rack I had my MIM Strat and my Epi LP7. I was going to make a switch, and while putting the LP back it slipped and hit the Strat with the on edge of the "arm-rest" area. The LP was fine (few ), but my strat now has a chunk of finish taken out of it and shattered, jagged edges remain around the ding... and it's right down to the wood](*,) ! Needless to say, due to its position I can't play it anymore because it scratches my arm up pretty bad!

 

I will band aid it sometime, but for now it just collects dust. Otherwise it's in great shape! Sad though, it's my first axe, and it was painful for 5 minutes. I'm glad the strat was there to break the LP's fall!!!

 

Otherwise, that thing has had many "oh SH!t" moments, and none of those other incidents had any effects. It's been accidentally run over by my car while in the gig bag, dropped down stairs 3 stories high, and bumped into countless things, it took a Les Paul to break it... I took that as a sign!

[tonebias]

Ah the dreaded "HUMBLE BUMP" so called because it's humbling...

 

Have not yet hurt my new Les Paul......yet......

 

My American Deluxe Strat has a nice ding on the back after falling off the couch and hitting the edge of my little practice amp. Another strat hit the coffee table and put a dent in the side of the neck/fretboard near the 5th fret.

 

Here's a good one: I use to have a room where I played that had a ceiling fan and I have hit many-a-headstock on it while it was moving when taking my guitars off my shoulder. Guitar safety tip: don't play under a ceiling fan, it may not get you the first or second time, but eventually it will win the game...

[RichCI]

Think of this way: some people pay a lot extra for guitars that are beat up by a professional.

[Bluemoon]

No dings yet on my LP. I had a Tacoma accoustic that fell off this fancy wooden stand I bought for it. It put a huge ding in the back of the neck. It sucked because you could feel it when you were playing certain cords, etc. But then the finish on the guitar started bubbling a little and I sent it to Tacoma to repair it under warranty. It came back perfect and in the process of fixing the finish the repaired the ding. This was before Fender bought Tacoma. I not sure they would do it again.

 

I sold the stupid stand on ebay.

[retrosurfer1959]

I have a really bad one I shared in the past but, since there's a lot of new people maybe some of you can learn from my pain. I was playing at a small bar that was just opened b a friend and had a lot of friends and family in the audience we played a set and everyone was clapping and yelling having a good time and I decided to get cute and held a Custom Shop 63 Firebird up to wave and forgot how long the neck was on a bird and sure enough I stuck the headstock up into a ceiling fan blade. WONK - WONK and a nice chip in the headstock, plus the added benefit of looking stupid in front of friends and family truly priceless.

 

It's been aabout a year now and people still make jokes looking up or pointing out ceiling fans to me just in case.

 

Good news was the Firebird was a natural with a dark stain so a melt stick pretty much covered the scratch almost completely. I can find it since I know where it is but anyone else would be hard pressed to see it.

[Aaresz]

I have a really bad one I shared in the past but' date=' since there's a lot of new people maybe some of you can learn from my pain. I was playing at a small bar that was just opened b a friend and had a lot of friends and family in the audience we played a set and everyone was clapping and yelling having a good time and I decided to get cute and held a Custom Shop 63 Firebird up to wave and forgot how long the neck was on a bird and sure enough I stuck the headstock up into a ceiling fan blade. WONK - WONK and a nice chip in the headstock, plus the added benefit of looking stupid in front of friends and family truly priceless.

 

It's been aabout a year now and people still make jokes looking up or pointing out ceiling fans to me just in case.

 

Good news was the Firebird was a natural with a dark stain so a melt stick pretty much covered the scratch almost completely. I can find it since I know where it is but anyone else would be hard pressed to see it. [/quote']

 

 

I've read this before but I had to say that is the best story! The visual is awesome, and it sounds like no real harm done.

[slimjimdom]

Here's a two in one. My first Gibson, SG special

 

First thing I unknowingly made the mistake of leaving it on the wrong stand. Pulled some of the finish off the neck. I had that fixed with some touch up and looks fine. You can still see it if you know where to look but it doesn't jump out. Second "oops" I sat down to play one day not paying attention to my keys on my belt loop ...nice scratch down to the wood. I figure like many people have said.. people pay alot to have their guitars expertly beat up. So i went down to the hardware store got some fine grit sanpaper and gently cleaned up the scratch and the surrounding area and blended it to now what looks like a normal wear mark (especially on a faded finish guitar)

 

The way I see it, guitars are going to be worn over time. At least I have a story and reason for the scuffs and dings rather than buying it that way.

[surfpup]

Here's one: I'm fifteen and I have my first guitar - an Alvarez acoustic I got for my birthday - $150. I have a shoelace tied on for a strap and I am practicing rock star poses in front of the mirror. I look good! Until the shoelace slips off and the guitar crashes to the floor. It drops straight down, landing on terrazzo floor. (Terrazzo is like polished concrete if you've never had the "pleasure" of living with it). In spite of the large crack it created on the back and front near the lower bout, I still have the guitar and it still sounds pretty good. In fact my 10 year old son has started learning on it. His floor is carpeted though, so when he drops it pretending he's a rock star there won't be any further damage! :)

[Riffster]

Where do I start, my LPVM dings easily

 

1 - I set the guitar in the wrong stand, the plastic reacted with the finish pretty much evaporated it.

2 - I set the case on the bed, a little too far into it, kneeled down on the bed to put the guitar in the case and there comes the case lid closing fast right against my guitar.

3 - Set the guitar next to the case then later I moved the case, one of the latches scratched the side of the guitar.

4 - I leaned to tweak a pedal and hit a wooden table with the side of the neck at the first fret, dented the fretboard edge .

and

5 - I nervously set my guitar against a coffee table I figure I was being careful enough, then I get up from my seat and get tangled with the guitar cable around my ankles and still plugged to the guitar, in horror I see my guitar flying up in the air and turning around hadstock first headed for the floor, it lands on its headstock the the body edge below the controls rubs right against the coffee table edge. To this day I do not understand why the headstock did not break off.

 

On LPVM you can put water on the dent for a while and the wood comes back up if the fibers did not break, I have done that plenty of times needles to say...

[saturn]

I wish I knew how it happened, but about a month ago I noticed a little round dimple in the maple top of my Les Paul. It looks like someone threw a marble at it. The only thing I could think of, was that maybe the end of my leather strap, with the strap lock, hit it as I was putting it on sometime. I guess it's an unsolved mystery.

[L5Larry]

30 some odd years ago, while doing a string change, I learned the hard way why you don't snip all the strings at the same time on an Les Paul as I watched the stop tailpiece bounce down the face of my brand new guitar. If only Al Gore had invented the internet in the seventies there would have been a forum like this to warn me about that.

 

The other really dumb thing that I did to my LP was one time as it was siiting on a stand I dinged the point of the cutaway horn with the bottom strap of another guitar as I was putting it on an adjacent stand.

 

Oh, and then there was the time I was doing the solo to Black Magic Woman in a club while standing on the bar. Toward the end I was going to step down onto a bar stool and then to the floor to get back to the stage. As I stepped onto the stool it swiveled and sent me and my guitar straight to the floor. As I was lieing there on my back still playing, I realized I hadn't missed a lick. The butt end of a Strat took a pretty big hit on that one.

 

I guess that's my three biggies, all stupid stuff completely of my own doing. Other than that there are always small stage accidents like backing up into cymbals or banging headstocks with the bass player. This kind of stuff happens so often you don't even take much note anymore. On another forum you might call these fender benders.

 

So the moral of the story is:

1. Al Gore should have invented the internet during the seventies.

2. Always play your Les Paul, don't ever set it down.

3. Beware of spinning stools.

[tonebias]

Al Gore should have invented the internet during the seventies

 

That damn Algore! While he's flying around in that jet, wasting all that fossile fuel warming the globe, he should consider us guitar players, and how we have GAS problems. Maybe the government should come up with a program for people with GAS. (for those who are new to guitars, GAS=Guitar Aquisition Syndrome - or - Gear Aquisition Syndrome). It is a legitimate problem that should be recognized by Algore.

 

I think that Algore (no mistake in spelling) owes us all new les pauls because, well just because... Ya, and Clinton should give us all cigars just for speaking up. We could all smoke our cigars while on Algores internet and have a jam session at the same time.

[daveinspain]

 

Good news was the Firebird was a natural with a dark stain so a melt stick pretty much covered the scratch almost completely. I can find it since I know where it is but anyone else would be hard pressed to see it.

 

Melt stick??? What is that... I think I need one!

 

So one day I walk into my studio to practice... There I see my two week old flawless, mint, first addition Robot sitting in its stand and I notice something on the edge of the body where the binding would be if it had one, right below the volume pot... Suddenly my brain does a zoom in on the spot my eyes bugged out of my head and I grab the guitar and there it is A DING!! Right down to the wood... First reaction was who the F*%# did that to my guitar. Needless to say I did. I don't know when or how but it could only have been me... No one else goes in my studio... Best I can figure is while bending down to pick something up I must have bumped the edge of the guitar against my desk. Any way I got over it and managed to camouflage the ding with some blue cobalt oil pain... A couple week later I find another one practically in the same spot No idea!!