The worst guitar I ever owned

[Graffiti62]

Hey Guys--

There was recently a discussion about the uglies guitar ever made, but I was curious more on a personal level.

The question is simple:

What's the worst guitar you've ever owned?

 

[Cagey]

I've been pretty fortunate my whole life when it comes to guitars. Worst one was the first one, a $25 acoustic my parents bought me for my birthday when I was 11 or 12. One of those "starter" instruments parents are famous for buying for their kids "to see if they'll stick with it" without risking too much money. It's a good thing I already had my heart set on playing guitar before I got that one, or I'd have never picked up a guitar again. Hell of it was, for the same money some guy wanted to sell me an old Gibson archtop acoustic with f-holes one of his elderly uncles had given to him. My mother wouldn't let me buy it because she already had this other nightmare in layaway.

I don't know how many guitars I've had since, but the worst of them was great.

 

[OzziePete]

Worse guitar I probably ever had was my first one. A very cheap acoustic I bought from K-Mart. Action was so high that it brought blood! Couldn't stay in tune, bridge wobbled, horrible horrible guitar.

 

[whyachi]

I'd say a First Act acoustic from Best Buy, everything on that guitar wobbled loose.

Worse serious instrument.. my Ibanez IJXB190 was a scratchy, buzzy, hummy POS, but it got me interested in four big strings instead of six little ones, and for that I am thankful.

 

[AGWAN]

B.
C.
RICH

 

[tfarny]

I'm gonna go with a late 80s squire strat, it always amazed me when people talk those things up. Worst guitar I ever owned. I also had a no-name pawn shop maybe-70s 335 copy back in the day, with only one working pickup and a way-weird neck, but I have to respect the weirdness of that one a bit, like a Jack White guitar I guess.

 

[Orpheo]

I started out on a Charvel Model 6, so my first can't be judged as the worst. The worst guitar I EVER had, was a Gibson les paul standard. well.... and another gibson Lp standard, a gibson LP studio faded, gibson LP studio, gibson LP custom, gibson LP custom, gibson LP custom...


I think all of my gibsons s*cked major ass... the fenders I had, were AWESOME! I still miss my old gretsch, and my warmoths are just AWESOME! but the gibsons....

 

[DesmoDog]

My worst guitar.... a Saga Strat kit. My dad gave it to me about 25 years ago when I expressed interest in playing. He built banjos at the time and I did a lot of mechanical stuff so it wasn't a bad IDEA, it's just the the kit truly sucked. Routs were the wrong size so there were gaps, that sort of thing. I started building it and then put it in the box for 25 years until I decided I wanted to try to play guitar again. Took it out , realized all over again it sucked, and went out to buy a real guitar.

Started playing the real guitar. Everyday. Finished the Saga kit. Found more issues with the neck. Threw it back in the closet. Built a Warmoth Strat instead. 'nuff said.

So anyway.. I'm wondering... if I had gotten a playable guitar rahter than a trashy kit... would I have been playing guitar these past 25 years or would I have given up on that too?  We'll never know.. and I'm juts glad I finally DID start playing and came across that Warmoth Strat body I just couldn't resist!

 

[-CB-]

Gibson Les Paul Custom.  

Bought up at Sam Ash in Huntington NY (or is that Melville?).   Within a few months, the neck went south.  Literally, to Florida!  Then it twisted something like a cross between a kruller and Clinton's alleged Johnson.   That is, it bent in an arc downward toward the high E, such that you could actually see it get unplayable close to the fret ends at around fret 10 to about fret 14.   To make things worse, you look down the neck to the bridge and it twisted a good 10 degrees.   Gibson dealers were few and far between down here.  I took it to Modern Music in Ft Lauderdale, got to meet Lonnie Mack, who happened to be in the store, and they sent it to Kalamazoo (a mistake, since it should have gone to Nashville).  When it was all done, Gibson refused to do anything, and I sold the guitar for scrap value on the hardware and pickups.

Best guitar I ever had?  Hmmmm.  That natural ES-333 is pretty dang nice, its got Phat Cats in it, switched to the old 335 trapeze tail, and is a tone monster.

 

[Loobs]

PRS Custom 22. It was terrible, seriously. The most unresonant piece of junk ever, the pickups were horrendous, the rotary switch was horrendous, couldn't get it set up well. It just sucked. I only bought it because it was mad cheap and I thought i could flip it at profit. Honestly, i've had Squiers that blew it away.

 

[Patrick from Davis]

A Rondo strat (3 single coils) that was black and had EVH white stripes painted on it.  The tuners barely worked, the bridge cut you from a variety of points, and the neck cramped my hand.  No one liked that neck.  Got my Contemporary Strat after that, and made leaps and bounds of forward progress in playing ability.  Still have that press board body nightmare, but it doesn't see the light of day any more.
Patrick

 

[mayfly]

Late 70's Gibson Les Paul Deluxe (Gold top)

Oh my god what a piece of crap that was.  And all the time I owned it, I thought it was me that was crappy!  (well, it was, but the guitar was not out of the clear either).

 

[Velcro]

I got a £20 electric and 32 years on I still play it! It's a telecaster with les paul pups and wiring. It plays beautifully and sounds great.

 

[Strat Avenger]

But Gibsons are supposed to be so awesome.    :icon_scratch:

 

[kboman]

My very first guitar had probably been a pretty decent one, 50 or 60 years ago or so... It belonged to my grandmother once. The action is sky high, the intonation doesn't, it sounds like it's stuffed with cotton and the top is cracked. When I first got it some of the tuners couldn't even be turned with a pair of pliers! One day this guitar is getting a resurrection treatment, because of the sentimental value. It's one of only two things I'd run back in to save if my apartment caught fire.

The most aggravating of my guitars was a black Epiphone LP Custom. It was basically a POS. The pickups squealed like pigs when close to a gain knob, the output jack was in pieces and the neck... oh, the neck. It basically had the shape of a mirrored "?". Frets 5 to 13 buzzed like crazy at pretty much any string height, intonation was all to hell, loads of dead spots - yuck! I finally sold it to some poor schmuck and got a Schecter instead.

 

[Doughboy]

Did Gibson ever make anything that was super duper awsome? I've yet to play a none custom shop model that was even close to being a good guitar & everyone I know who's owned one eventually started to complain about problems.

I've seen $10,000 custom shop LEs Pauls that were not bad, but still not great. Even at 10k, the frets & binding work were subpar. Felt like a $1000 guitar.

 

[TJD]

Listen up Gibson Haters Club...I know there's plenty of legitimate reasons to be critical here but I think this pathalogical disdain is rooted some where upstairs in your Fender rear end smooching brains.  I know Fender rules here and I've had plenty of strats thatI liked too but  lets face it..In the 80's when I bought my beloved (and superior quality I might add) black Gibson Les Paul Custom ($860 brand new!), Fender strats had more cheap lightweight plastic and poor quality wood than your basic Gibson.  Anyway. worst guitar was a Kramer Focus 6000 and I don't  have enough time to list what it did wrong. Most surprisingly good guitar was actually a Mexi-Yngwie Strat if you can believe it!

psI wouldnt pay $2000-$5000 for a Gibby either.

 

[AGWAN]

I'm not a huge fan of either company, to be honest...

though fender still might get my business.

if they ever release the Jim Root Strat/tele lefty.

thats about it. though.

 

[Cagey]

It's true; Fender has shipped some real garbage in the past. In fact, I'd say it's only been the last 15-20 years or so that any of their guitars have really shone. The original stuff was built cheap on purpose, then CBS applied their Harvard MBAs to the business and made everything worse, at least for the customers. Much longer, and they could have killed the company altogether. They still don't make the best examples of their own designs, but they're at least acceptable if you can afford them. Luckily, their designs are good, and there are those who know how to reduce them to practice.

 

[TBurst Std]

Worst,
a Stella acoustic from 1970. My first guitar. Gave up guitar in 6 weeks due to it. A barre chord drew blood on a 6 year old.
The action was measured in miles. String gauge was "barbed".  Frets dimensions were determined by Gillette Razor Blades. Relief was a contour map of a canyon.