Dumbest thing you've ever done to a bass

[RocThrower]

Being young and naive, I thought I'd give my 97 Am. St. Jazz (saved forever to buy it) a classic "de-fret and epoxy" treatment, and totally destroyed the neck in the process. Everything went well for the most part, but I could never get a smooth, even finish with the epoxy. I sanded it it so much that I totally screwed up the fingerboard. I was in college and poor, so I sold it. A few weeks later, I get some catalog in the mail, and Fender had started offering replacement necks. If I only had known. Now if I get a new bass, my friends always ask if I'm going to rip the frets out of it like I did to that old Fender.

[makaspar]

Let's see pictures of the mangled basses! I want to see some bass reshaping gone wrong :-D


Here's my only contribution: left my first bass in my car in a hotel parking lot. Guess what?

[Kryptos]

Walking out to practice slipped on pool deck and Fender P ends up in pool (they float by the way).

Came home a few days later and found two of my instruments in their stands wearing life jackets (courtesy of my daughters).

[naufal6161]

burn it

only a little part of my bass
I'm not totally regret it, it's look cool for me

but I'm pretty ashamed when someone asking "what happened to your bass?"

the middle one

[cfsporn]

I ripped all the frets out of my first bass (old headstock SX P) and painted over the cuts in the wood with epoxy because that's what (I thought) Jaco did.

[Scott in Dallas]

A Washburn B70RS Rudy Sarzo model with the rising sun pattern.

I purchased it.

[dudelove]

i traded my warwick corvette pro 5iver from 93s to a g&l tribute l2500, after i have the tribute about 8 mounth it died or it dosnt make any sound

[Mr_Music90]

Putting D'addario strings on it...

[bodmin]

Not a major problem, but pretty dumb. I asked for some help on TB about a bridge repair to my Fender MIM jazz v, and after I completed the repair (Badass bridge alignment issue), I was tired and restrung it in a hurry to get a picture up on here to show the result and never realised that I put the strings through the "spare" holes for the saddle intonation screws instead of the holes for the strings DUH!!! - I didn't realise until I saw the photo on here, and felt to much an idiot to say anything until now It tuned and intonated really well...(it is my back-up bass, so hadn't used it to notice...). Its all good now though.



The offending stringing error AAAAAAAAGH!

[fivestringgecko]

Originally Posted by Mr_Music90

Putting D'addario strings on it...

Switched away from D'Addario. Lol

5sg.

[fivestringgecko]

Originally Posted by Kryptos

Walking out to practice slipped on pool deck and Fender P ends up in pool (they float by the way).

Came home a few days later and found two of my instruments in their stands wearing life jackets (courtesy of my daughters).

LOL! Awesome.

5sg.

[Rip Topaz]

I can't even count anymore the number of basses I've destroyed by taking mods too far.
Sometimes it's just hard to know when to quit!!

[pbass62]

Took my late 60s maple neck pbass and routed out a hole for the 9v battery for the preamp I was adding( I failed wood shop )
2nd thing was a mint fretless mid 70s p bass that was fortunately in the case took a flying ride out of the back of my F150 ( yes the tailgate was left down) I was coming from a drunkfest party my band was playing at.

[Ayce]

Not my fault, but dumb, none the less.
At an arena show with several country bands, I had set my bass up (in it's stand) in front of my amp. Another band was playing, when one of their members bumped onto the amp. Unfortunately, someone had placed a beer on top of the amp, and it spilled all down the fretboard and all over the face of the bass. I had to play next, and I had to wipe the beer off it first.
Took me ages to clean it off, but thankfully, no real damage done (Other than the smell of beer).
Since then, I always remove my bass from the stage when I'm not playing it.

[Shadi]

I had a beautiful black USA Lakland Duck Dunn #16....traded it for two good basses, but there will never be anything like that bass. It had abalone inlays in the neck and was routed by the factory so the pickups could be setup normal or in 'reverse p' mode....sigh....

[fivestringgecko]

Does something I want to do count? 1) I want to get a Squier VM J5 and relic it 2) find another bass and torch it a la Larry Hartke's torched basses... Is that crazy?

5sg.

[Axtman]

I left a 1975 P-bass in a car trunk in the middle of winter in the Midwest. The temperature got down to like -20F. When I went to retrieve it the clear finish had cracked like shattered glass. At first I though the body was broken.

Then I proceeded to remove the finish and refinish it. Big mistake, but I was young. After several attempts it ended up looking fair. I traded it in for a Rick 4003....and then regretted it ever since. Fast forward 15 years. I saw it for sale at BassNW and bought it! Lots of memories with that bass....even with the crappy finish.

[Doner Designs]

Dumbest thing I ever did was consider playing in public.

[CelebrityCircus]

Lifted the bass straight up (my first mistake) and inserted it unwillingly into the moving ceiling fan.

Rookie mistake, I get that.

[PipeRain]

Dumbest thing I ever did was not play my bass seriously enough when I was in a band about 20 years ago. I then compounded my folly by putting it down for about 20 years, I am now attempting to rectify this folly...

Does slathering the poor bass with stickers count...?