Official Luthiers Forum!

This morning I cleaned up the bridge plate inside a Taylor 710. There were large pieces of blowout from drilling the bridge pin holes without a backer. While vacuuming out the residue from inside the guitar, I discovered a woman's black footie sock inside the body. That's a new one for me! What are some of the funny or bizarre things you have found inside of acoustics or hollow body electrics?

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It will probably be alright.

Those dang rattlesnake rattles inside the guitar always freak me out.

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jw ( o)===:::

LOL that would be a first for me as well.

I found a bag of weed in one of my repair guitars once. Doood I lost my weed.

Yep rattle sanke rattles seem to be popular because we see them too.

I recently posted about the green and brown super thick toe nail with fuzzy mold growing on it that I found under a saddle as a shim... For Felix Ungar here I was considering getting back into therapy after that one....

Not to ruin your day Greg my friend but my teenage nephew was just over last night as was his Dad and his Dad was joking to us that you never want to touch any socks in his son's room..... You never know where that sock has been...

Besides vintage vomit and bong water stains that I also posted about recently here is my favorite.

One of our customers is an elderly lady who was active in the 60's in the folk scene and back then she played a G*bson B-25-12. The guitar had been put away for 30+ years and never touched and last year she bought it to us to have it restored and made playable again.

I found a newspaper article in the guitar from the month that she had purchased her B-25 about the Kalamazoo G*bson plant. In the picture was a worker holding a B-25 fresh off the bench and ready to ship.

After presenting her with her guitar and enjoying her playing a Cohen tune while she was tearing up all the while I presented her the newspaper article. She told us that back in the day she was able to go to the factory and pick out her guitar in person and then buy that exact guitar. Turns out the one in the picture was the one in our shop.

Which reminds me every day actually that how we see the guitars of others needs to always take into consideration that often their guitars have been great friends though all manner of life's events for better or worse. Nice lady, great guitar and having had the opportunity to be part of helping this now 70 something woman feel happy as can be again made me feel like $4. I usually feel like $1.

Great thread!

Just saw JF's post.. A bag of weed and a sock reminds me of Cheech and Chong but I can't remember the rest of it...

I bought an old Bay State at an estate sale. It had been home to a mouse, so it was full of corn, dried plants and mouse droppings.

I've yet to find anything interesting inside of a guitar, but I always enjoy these threads. A toenail as a saddle shim? That is too weird. A woman who sheds her clothing while you play? I can see that working out okay.

The rattlesnake rattle is supposed to help get your mojo working ... if you believe in that kind of thing. Personally, I think daily practice is probably a better way to build some chops.

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George :-)

personal letters sent to the owner.
Pot!
A 20 dollar bill!
More dust webs& dog or cat fur then I need to see!
Spilt liquid residue!
Some of it was shot in there-vomit !!YUK!!!!!!
Song lists.
Picks.
Business cards.

Wow I need to stop!
MIke

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Mike Collins

So was the weed any good or did you return it to the owner

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Say what you do, Do what you say.

Ha ha IIRC I don't think it was the 'kind' stuff but I make sure to always return the old replaced parts when I do a repair

Clients used to try to pay me with weed. I just told them the bank took another kind of green stuff. Never was offered coke, thank goodness.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

In the short time I've been working in this shop:

- A used EPT stick. Looks like 'not pregnant', but the customer's daughter is doing a semester abroad, so who knows?

- Corner of an open condom wrapper. Same dorm room guitar...maybe the reason for the negative result?

- Three very large, very dead palmetto bugs (big...really big roaches) in a guitar that came up from Panama. I refuse to get near that instrument.

The boss's favorite was a 'tone ball' that contained a mummified rodent. This sounds like one of those urban luthier legends, but who am I to doubt? Did I mention I always wear nitrile gloves when doing disassembly and cleaning? We like to think we give the guitars the 'Blue Glove' treatment...and unlike my day job, no K-Y necessary!

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A constellation only takes shape when one maps the whole.
- Beth Brower

Had a pal who bought a banjo from an elderly widow who was having trouble with living expenses. When he got it home, he discovered more than two grand in small bills that had been carefully rolled up and stuffed through the flange holes into the resonator. Tip money.

He went back, and delivered the cash to a grateful old lady. . .

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Cheers,

Frank Ford

FRETS.COM
HomeShopTech
FRETS.NET

What a wonderful story.
Mind you, removing it must have improved the sound.
After all, you don't want a rich sound from a banjo do you? .....

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I too have found money inside guitars.

But aside from all the vintage toneballs the one thing I will never forget is the guitar that had mushrooms growing inside it. They were dried out when I found them but did coincide nicely with the water damage on the instrument.

Then there was the guitar that had bugs living in it and it's case.....looked like some type of borer. Turned that guitar around really fast!

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

All you repair guys were spared this one... luckily it was an old Sears cheappo. Was kept in the corner behind the couch. Somehow my wife's dear alzheimer'd grandmother wriggled her way behind the couch and decided the guitar looked like the chamberpot of her youth. 'nuff said.

Whewwww

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

My elbow! Comes in handy. I can shave braces on a dread clear out to the ends of the lower X-braces, or used to, back when I did that sort of thing.



Pat

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

I found some quarter-notes in there one time...

Just a mouse nest and some dead bugs for me.

Sent from my HTC Desire 626s using Tapatalk

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Another day, another dollar.

Here's a Gambian 5 Dalasis note I found inside one that I made, when it came back for service. This instrument travels with its owner everywhere, so when he took it to Gambia on a tour of Africa, somebody had stuffed the note into the bass while he was playing. According to the locals, the note was now a good-luck charm, and it would mean bad luck to remove it. The owner was quite upset when I told him I had found it, and I was instructed to put it back in after finishing the repair.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Customer brought in a 1965 Martin D35 and mentioned a buzz that just wouldn't go away. After looking at the obvious things, camera was inserted to have a look around. Found the culprit.



Yes, that is a wasp's nest.

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Martin Taylor
http://martintaylorguitars.com.au

Sorry, couldn't resist it.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Has anyone seen my keys?