Describe your biggest waste-of-money mod project

[NoahL]

I bought a G&L ASAT Classic Tribute model for $325 new -- a steal. Then decided, "Make it like a G&L Bluesboy [neck humbucker]." I wanted a thick, warm tone, so I got a GFS Fat PAF. It cost at least another $125 to have the guard and body routed for the pickup and the wiring done, plus a setup. Sounded shitty and there were issues between the 6k bridge and the 16k neck pickups. Took it to another guy, who rippped out the pots and stuff and charged me another $100 to put high-quality pots/cap/switch/jack in. Still sounded poor, because that GFS pickup is not meant for a maple-necked Tele-style guitar, even a thinline like this one. So the guy sold me on Fralins -- P-92 and overwound Blues Special. Strangely, the pickups took forever to arrive, and when they didn't sound like the luthier had promised, I called Fralin and he said he had no record of selling an overwound Tele bridge pickup to this luthier at that time. Did the guy just give me some regular Fralin from his stock? Regardless, the guitar did end up sounding nice -- but not like what I had in mind. It was brighter and spankier than I wanted. And here's why: ASAT Bluesboys have rosewood boards and Seth Lovers in the neck, not maple and P-92 single-coils. I could have found a used US Bluesboy for $700 and been happy. Instead I think I spent nearly $900 (holy shite!) and ended up parting with the guitar for $500. I learned lessons about not trying to turn one guitar into another, about how neck and body wood affect tone, about why it's better sometimes to just buy what you want upfront. The silver lining is it made me decide to do my own mods from then on. So I'm wasting less money. But still wasting it, for sure. ;-)