# Modifications that shouldn't have been made?



## Kenmac (Jan 24, 2007)

First a little backstory on this. Up until around 1985 I'd always been a Les Paul player, but then one day I was trying out a nice black Fender Stratocaster with a white pickguard at a store that used to be here in Scarborough called "Music Express '84". For those of you who think the name sounds familiar it was located on Pharmacy Road between Eglinton Avenue and St. Clair. They went out of business a long time ago and even now I still miss that store.

Anyway, one of the guys who was a regular knew I always tried out Les Pauls at the store and when he saw me playing the Strat he said, "Trying something new huh?" At first the Strat felt different to me as I was so used to the feel and scale of the Les Paul but after playing it for a while I was sold on it. It had a nice "quack" to it, even in the middle position but since I wasn't all that familiar with the Strat sound at the time, it bothered me. (More on that in a moment.) One thing to remember is the mid -80's was a time when Fender were trying to prove themselves again as they'd been embarrassed by Tokai and they wanted to show people they were capable of making great guitars again. I also recall a couple of guys trying out Strats at the time and one guy being so impressed he said to the other guy with him, "This is so close to the vintage sound." 

So anyway, I ended up buying the Strat and I enjoyed it for awhile but now here's where things go wrong. At that time in the guitar magazines there was a market for pickups that were more powerful, and I mean pickups with *big* magnetic pull. For some reason I convinced myself that I needed more powerful pickups in the Strat so I went to Music Express and had the tech install two Seymour Duncan "Hot Rails" pickups in the neck and middle position and (this'll make you gasp) I had him install an SD "Quarter Pounder" (At least I think it was called that) humbucking pickup. It had hexagonal magnets on it that were almost as big as a dime and the body had to be routed out to fit the pickup in. :frown: Yeah, I know. Needless to say these pickups made the guitar sound totally different but not in a good way. That distinctive Strat tone was gone. I couldn't get the "quack" (which I found out later is, of course, a very desirable sound) even in the 2nd and 4th positions and the bridge pickup sounded more like a neck pickup. I basically ruined the tone of my guitar with the modifications and I eventually ended up selling it.

If I hadn't have done that I think I'd still probably own that black Strat. I chalk it up to youthful inexperience as I was only around 24 or 25 at the time. So that was my "unneeded modification" story. How about you? Every had an "Oops" moment? Have you ever sawed off a little too much, burnt something with your soldering iron, etc? Or maybe the tech you took the guitar to messed something up? I'm sure there are many people here who have stories to tell. Let's hear them.


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## dwagar (Mar 6, 2006)

ahh, the 80s. Mods from hell. 

I often wonder how many Les Pauls had 1/4" holes (at least one) drilled in them to use 4 wire pickups? My '74 Custom has this desirable "mod".

How many necks were sanded off, or, even worse, shaved?

Or one of the worst mods I've seen on a Les Paul "yep, we can fit a Floyd Rose in there".

How many pieces of brass can you use on a guitar? Extra weight has to equal extra mass which has to equal extra sustain, right?

I suppose the worst I've done, albeit on a very cheap guitar, my first electric, a Supro, was to turn it into a teardrop shape ala Brian Jones Vox (was it a Vox? this was back in '66), and spray paint it candy apple red.


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## Metal#J# (Jan 1, 2007)

Not my doing but I have a PRS that someone had switched the 5 way to a toggle and consequently made the hole too big. I've got a new rotary switch that I wanted to put in but it just spins because the barbs on the lock washer have nothing to grab on to. It also appears that, right from PRS, the cavity was routed too deep and the top is only 1/8" thick so messing with it might crack the top. Looks like I'm stuck with the toggle.

J


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## Hamm Guitars (Jan 12, 2007)

dwagar said:


> Or one of the worst mods I've seen on a Les Paul "yep, we can fit a Floyd Rose in there".


I had one of those. It was a Gold Top that I bought used (and cheap) that was modded by a previous owner.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Say what you will about the demise of domestically-produced instruments and the rise of the everything-from-China guitar industry, but one of the things it has done is make reasonably decent instruments available for such ridiculously low prices that people can afford to own several instruments, including those they purchase exclusively for experimentation purposes. Of course that still doesn't stop bonehead moves prompted by the frenzy of the time, but....

My principle guitar is a 1964 "batwing" Epiphone Coronet, given to me by a cousin who passed on at too young an age. That guitar has been through so many incarnations it isn't funny. I refretted the neck myself with heavier gauge to stabilize it, which worked up to a point, but I knew bupkes about installing frets so the intonation is pathetic. Whatever possessed me to scrap the original cherry red finish, I'll never know. I scrapped the original P-90 (gave it to singer-songwriter Marshall Crenshaw, who I'm sure gave it a good home) and went through a bunch of pickup configurations before finally returning to a (probably lesser) - you guessed it - P-90. Dumb, dumb, dumb.


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## Wheeman (Dec 4, 2007)

Every time I point my soldering iron in the general direction of my guitars I know I shouldn't touch them.

But if I don't break them, I won't learn...


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

ken, sounds to me like you just didnt like the new tone.

i doubt that with those upgrades the strat sounded bad, it just probably sounded more like a superstrat (which is what you turned it into).

thank goodness for the stetsbar to replace routing LP's for FR trems haha.

mods that shouldnt have been done? putting fx into guitars lol


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## Kenmac (Jan 24, 2007)

Budda said:


> ken, sounds to me like you just didnt like the new tone.
> 
> i doubt that with those upgrades the strat sounded bad, it just probably sounded more like a superstrat (which is what you turned it into).
> 
> ...


Well, what I turned it into was a mess really. I should never have had that modification done. I wish somebody at the time would have been there to tell me not to do it. But as they say, you learn from your mistakes. BTW I agree with you 100% regarding putting effects into guitars. Pedals or rackmounted units (thank goodness) are the way to go for almost everybody.


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## Ripper (Jul 1, 2006)

I think everyone has butchered something from time to time. I remind myself however, how cheap things were then (back in the early 80's around here, used fender amps could easily be had for $100 to $200) and they were plentiful, so why not mod them to make them into something that worked for the owner. 


Same as shaving necks etc. If that is what a person wanted to make the guitar better for them, so be it. No one thought "gee some day these will be vintage and worth as much as my car". I wonder now, what pieces of gear out now, that gets modded and chopped will be a "collectors item" down the road.


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## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

Not a mod, but I threw a triangle bigmuff in the trash in the 80s. 









My 335 has at some time in its life been drilled and modded for a coil tap maybe or a master volume -- good for me as it brought the price way down.
You can just barely see the drop fill between the toggle and the pickguard...


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

dwagar said:


> ahh, the 80s. Mods from hell.
> 
> I often wonder how many Les Pauls had 1/4" holes (at least one) drilled in them to use 4 wire pickups? My '74 Custom has this desirable "mod".


You can always use push/pull pots to switch between settings.

The only guitar of mine that has been modded to any significant degree is my Les Paul--which had been modded before I bought it. A previous owner had replaced the humbuckers with Seymour Duncan soapbars, but they didn't fit in very well, and didn't sound that good. I already had a Duncan humbucker & bought a matching one & had those put in, wired to switch the coils of each pickup between series & parallel--with push/pull pots. I also replaced the Grover machine heads---you could tell it originally had Klusons. I put on mini Schallers--which work quite well & it looks cool. I also replaced the bridge, which was corroded & falling apart. And I put on a TP-6, which I like for the ease of string changing & the look. I kept all the parts I replaced except for the Soapbars--which I traded for the labor, push/pull pots, and other odds & ends. So it was a good deal all around--and a good mod. 

On the other hand I have a friend who sanded off the finish on his Les Paul Custom, added a 3rd pickup & a Kahler trem. He regrests doing those things. But at least he has 2 Les Paul Customs.


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## Canadian Charlie (Apr 30, 2008)

Another Scarbourgh story here. 

Bought my Lado flying V and after a year I want a wammy bar on it. Couldn't afford a real Kahler at the time so I found a no name one that looked the same and had some 2 bit guitar store fit it in. 

Looking back now I wish I had the cash that I could have gotten Joe at Lado to do the job done right with a real Kahler


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## Kenmac (Jan 24, 2007)

Actually Charlie, you just reminded me of something. I had a Gibson Sonex 180 deluxe back in the 80's and I had Joe from Lado install a Kahler copy vibrato on it and surprisingly, for a copy, it worked great. I could "dive bomb" the strings down until they were like rubber bands and they'd come back to pitch everytime. That was a *good* modification. So I take it your Kahler copy didn't do the job?


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## gramatica (Dec 3, 2007)

[bag over head]I replaced the wiring in an Ibanez LP with coax... I was young and _very_ stupid![/bag over head]

It didn't sound any different, but I knew.


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