"Stupid as stupid does" as a stupid person once said. Amazingly the stupid guitar mistakes you're about to read really have happened. In the top 10 stupid things people have done to their guitars only the names have been withheld to protect those hapless fools involved. Come on lets have a chuckle at their expense! Its not like they don't deserve it..
10
A girl returned to a music shop complaining that the vibrato arm on her recently purchased Fender Stratocaster was faulty. Intrigued the man behind the counter asked her to demonstrate the problem and gawped in amazement as she repeatedly rammed the vibrato arm into the jack socket and wiggled it about. "See i told you it doesn't work" said the girl smugly.
9
It was 1986 and Dave Lee Roth's Yankee Rose video featuring Steve Vai spinning his axe around his neck inspired one young Glaswegian to do the same with his guitar. Only thing is when Vai did it his guitar didn't end up flying off its strap and wedging itself into a hi-fi speaker.Oh and when the poor guy tried to free his guitar,the headstock snapped off. D'oh!
8
Angry man stomps into a music shop complaining that his new electric guitar has stopped working. Pulling it from his case the guy behind the counter spots the problem right away. The man removed the original strings and replaced them with a nylon classical set because they were "easier to play". Good idea buddy,except electric guitar pickups can't amplify plastic strings. But hey,how was he to know that ?
7
There was an elderly couple that bought a cheap acoustic guitar and tried to remove the plastic film protecting the scratchplate. Somehow, bizarrely, they managed to pull the entire guitar top off and returned to the shop with the guitar in two separate pieces. To the amusement of the staff they tried to get a replacement under guarantee. Needless to conclude they left the shop highly disappointed.
6
A young guy buys a couple of shiny new pickups for his Les Paul copy. A week later he returns telling the music shop dude that the pickups don't seem to be working. The store guy has a look down and discovers that instead of soldering the wires in place the customer had used Blu-Tack. Quick,yes, Effective,hell no!
5
Guy buys a very expensive acoustic guitar,takes it home and hangs it over his fireplace. Consequently, the heat from the fireplace dries the guitar out, the top splits and the neck falls off and lands on his glass coffee table smashing it into pieces. Is there a moral to this sorry tale?
4
This guy walks into a music store with a 'melted' guitar. Apparently he wanted to remove the finish and so he dipped the entire guitar into a vat of paint stripper. The stripper did indeed take the finish off but also melted his pickups and fused together a warped Floyd Rose vibrato unit. Nice work dude!
3
How dumb is this? A man asks to try out a Wah Pedal in a shop." it's not working" says the potential customer. The sales dude takes a look and realises that, while the guy has plugged the guitar into the amp, he doesn't have any cables jacked into the Wah. He's rocking it back and forth with his foot and strumming his guitar like a manic....But, er, hmmm. the pedal isn't PLUGGED into anything! Sadly, this is a true story.
2
Some doofus decides to keep his guitar in tune permanently by coating his machineheads in super glue. His totally solid theory is that if they cant move then the guitar can't go out of tune. Then the genius goes and snaps a string! Guess what happened next...
1
The all time king of stupid guitar mistakes is the bright spark that didn't realise that you should AMPLIFY AN ELECTRIC GUITAR WITH AN AMPLIFIER. Confused, some guy cut off one end of the jack on the guitar lead and replaced it with with a household plug and then PLUGGED it into a wall socket! In a flash he learnt his mistake when his guitar combusted into flames like Jimi Hendrix would be very proud of. But joking aside this idiot is very lucky to be alive!
