What’s your #1 mod regret?

[bassburner]

Using the weak double sided sticky tape when routing a new pickup. Fortunately it was on a beat up Squier body but still...

 

[Pauly 4001]

I'm always on the lookout for bargains and have a soft spot for strays and the abused and mistreated.
The Hamer came stripped with the hardware in a bag and someone had already inflicted these body modifications to it:

The Ripper was originally a tobacco burst but had been badly stripped, painted with lumpy latex house paint and the frets removed and some sort of awful metal impregnated epoxy was applied. I had it refretted after replacing a pickup and stripping off the bad paint.
The BB1200 was bought from some guy who didn't play bass but had decided that he was going to learn to play like Jaco so naturally he had a jazz pickup installed, had the lower bout dug out and had it defretted. He never did learn to play.
The Shaftesbury was also bought with the hardware in a separate bag, was missing a functional tailpiece and someone had sawn off the end of the headstock so they could fit it into a guitar case. Note how the tuner doesn't even have enough real estate to fit on the headstock. It also had been hand brushed with black house paint.

 

[iiipopes]

I am very lucky. About 20 years ago I purchased a Squier II guitar for the sole purpose of hacking it up, trying different pickups and hardware, learning what it took to make a good mod, and how easily a well-meaning mod can turn bad. Those lessons learned, even though I have some instruments that have mods that did not turn out 100%, they all still pass the "five foot test." I have no regrettable stories about modding any of my other instruments, because, in the words of Harry Callahan, "A man's got to know his limitations." I learned mine on that $79 (at the time) Squier II.

I did make a bifocal mistake that cost me an amplifier: some years ago I was modding a Fender Blues Jr with some of the Bill M mods to make it sound more like a mini-Marshall. Well, the damn fool Fender engineers made the heater supply lead and the B+ lead the same brown color with the same spade lug to plug into the board, (among other design flaws - hence the Bill M mods) and put the lugs close to each other on the circuit board. Even being as careful as I could, I still accidentally swapped them, even double-checking before turning the amp on. Poof. 400 v DC going upstream fried the entire circuit board immediately. I love the acrid smell of burning electronics in the afternoon. I don't mod amps anymore. I stick with onboard electronics, and I keep extra cash on hand if I scuff coil windings. Yes - I know about "one off - one on." I was modding the reverb tail circuit, which required dismantling the board to tilt it up to get to the ribbons connecting the offset tube sockets. No choice but to remove all the lugs at once, as the leads were so short. The resulting transmittal of excrement completely overwhelmed the dynamic airflow induction device. I wasn't even able to salvage any of the tubes. I did salvage the speaker, as it was down stream, therefore it did not receive any of the voltage, and the gutted amp is now a 1X12 speaker cab for another bedroom amp.

 

[Sixgunn]

I'm always on the lookout for bargains and have a soft spot for strays and the abused and mistreated.
The Hamer came stripped with the hardware in a bag and someone had already inflicted these body modifications to it:
View attachment 4094122 View attachment 4094121 View attachment 4094120 View attachment 4094123 View attachment 4094119 View attachment 4094117 View attachment 4094116 View attachment 4094115
The Ripper was originally a tobacco burst but had been badly stripped, painted with lumpy latex house paint and the frets removed and some sort of awful metal impregnated epoxy was applied. I had it refretted after replacing a pickup and stripping off the bad paint.
The BB1200 was bought from some guy who didn't play bass but had decided that he was going to learn to play like Jaco so naturally he had a jazz pickup installed, had the lower bout dug out and had it defretted. He never did learn to play.
The Shaftesbury was also bought with the hardware in a separate bag, was missing a functional tailpiece and someone had sawn off the end of the headstock so they could fit it into a guitar case. Note how the tuner doesn't even have enough real estate to fit on the headstock. It also had been hand brushed with black house paint.

Those Hamer body mods are definitely some of the best I've seen. Not your typical hack job.

 

[stretch80]

My first good bass (which I still have ) was a 74 Rick 4000 - the single-pickup, set neck (not neck through) model. My only bass, and when I started getting studio work, the engineers started complaining about it's not being intonated very well (known problem for old Ricks) so I had Jim Mouradian put on a better bridge, and he did a better job of making it look rick-ish. And it sounded good, and the engineers stopped telling me I had to play the studio's P bass, haha. No regrets.

BUT then again, there was having a friend make me an active electronic circuit, and routing a spot for a pickup nearer the bridge, and a battery compartment in the back. I wouldn't mind a mulligan on that. That bass has an amazing neck, and plays great. The original pickup is weak on the E string, so I may get a new hi-gain to replace it at some point. But I'm never selling it!

 

[GretschWretch]

dumping my scooter in the sea and not fighting rockers no more

Am I the only person who picks up the allusion here? To the battles between the Mods and the Rockers during the sixties British beat bands era? DC5 and Who probably mods; Kinks and Stones, rockers. Freddy and the Dreamers in a league of their own.

 

[Sixgunn]

Wow! From this thread, I think there needs to be a TB Rickenbacker Reckers club!!

 

[sonojono]

None. I always do my research before going under the knife!

 

[johnbee]

dumping my scooter in the sea and not fighting rockers no more

Nice Quadrophenia reference!

 

[johnbee]

Wow! From this thread, I think there needs to be a TB Rickenbacker Reckers club!!

Rickenreckers!

 

[Kubicki Fan]

Biggest mod regret is paying someone else to to work on my basses in the past.

I left a gorgeous Warmoth neck with the tech at a local music (mega)store. The tuner holes needed to be enlarged to fit the Gotoh Res-O-Lite tuners I wanted to install. After a month it still was not done. The guy said he was waiting on a tool he ordered for the job, it should be another week or two until done. Got on the bus and retrieved the neck immediately. There were signs that he started to ream one of the tuner holes but it was not a pretty sight. I bought a reamer and did it in an hour. I am sure I dodged a bullet. To his credit the tech may have been aware that it was an expensive neck, and didn`t do irreversible damage. What makes this strange is that they had a couple of Ritters on hand at the time for over $20K each. I couldn`t imagine who would be entrusted to work on those.

 

[Sixgunn]

Rickenreckers!

I'm trade marking that!!

 

[projectapollo]

Owner two of a '76 Fender Precision I bought in '79, fiddled around learning a bit, put active pickups in around '94, traded it for a keyboard at a local music store in about '96. Then I decided to actually take up bass playing and realized what I had done.

 

[BtaylorTheRogue]

My doorknob.

 

[Matt R.]

Does ‘not smashing the hell out of every crappy Rickenbacker I’ve owned’ count?

 

[HardNHeavy]

Here’s the result of a mistake I made about 36 years ago. It was an ESP P bass that I had modded into a 5 string. The luthier really should have tried to talk me out of it. It was slim at the nut to begin with, and after the 5 string treatment, it became unplayable (by me, anyway).

View attachment 4094033

lol ouch u ran out of neck width for that 5th string...you could always find a piece of cool inlay or other material to fill that hole. (mother of pearl, abalone, turquoise, or emerald piece of glass.. just to help you forget...or remind

 

[funkmaster p]

lol ouch u ran out of neck width for that 5th string...you could always find a piece of cool inlay or other material to fill that hole. (mother of pearl, abalone, turquoise, or emerald piece of glass.. just to help you forget...or remind

Good ideas. Thanks!

 

[MisterUbu]

It doesnt end at the goya unfortunately
This was the result of trying to superglue a rubber washer to the head of an extra long neck plate screw WHILE IT WAS IN THE BASS. I took the cap off because glue wouldn't come out so I made a mess all over the back of the body so I tried to clean it immediately with water and a paper towel . Worst of all I tried sanding it off with 1000 grit and working my way up but I sanded through the thin matte finish in several spots . The only saving grace is that it's quite smooth from the sanding and it never got to the front of the body.

Note to self: don't EVER get superglue within 50 feet of a matte finish

 

[felis]

After years of modding and thousands of dollars lost my main regret is all of them. If you don’t like the way your bass sounds find something else that fits the bill. Basically everything you could want is currently available.

Not everything. I wanted a Mustang with two Mustang pickups and stacked knobs bad enough that I did it myself.

 

[juancaminos]

I did avoid a bad thing with the Tele in the mid 70's. There was a renowned guitar builder down the street from where I worked in Sun Valley California (his name escapes me). I asked him to strip the finish off the Telecaster so I could have a natural wood finish. He said no. I waited a month and asked again, he said no. Another month later I actually dropped off the bass when he wasn't there and waited. Finally I dropped by and he got mad at me, gave the bass back and said not to come by any more. Wew, that would have sucked I imagine now.