kid, what have you done to my guitar!

[TimSt.L]

So when my son was just learning to walk, he would(like most other kids) grab onto anything he could for support. Well his support one day was an Ibanez Jem that has been in my possession for less than 48 hours.
It was minding its own buisness on its guitar stand.I saw my child fumbling toward it and just couldn't react soon enough. He fell on his butt, the guitar fell on it's face and two nice little cracks on each side of the neck pocket appeared. The guitar plays great. Never had an issue. For some reason I didn't get too upset. Just shook my head a bit.
Anyone else have stories of they're children customizing they're axes?

 

[uptheoctave]

I don't have kids but when I was one I didn't know what truss rods were for.
I glued the trussrod cover to the guitar neck of my washburn A20 and filled the hole with putty so it would sit flat.

I recently reconditioned that guitar and it took me 3 hours of very careful work to removed all the putty from around the truss rod.

 

[partsocaster]

I've lucked out, my son, who just turned 8, has been very good about just strumming the guitars I have, I brought him in as early as I could and he helps me change strings, wants to know how stuff works but has never destroyed anything (though I have found my pedal board settings just slightly different from time to time, like every control dimed)

 

[King Loudness]

I have a story from the other perspective. When I was born, my mother bought my Dad a Samick dreadnought - pretty generic dark brown acoustic. I was always fascinated by it and would crawl around and try to strum it like he was doing. Eventually he started letting me try and pick it up. At the tender age of two I was doing so on our deck, and then it slipped out of my hands and the headstock broke off. My father then bought me my own smaller guitar and repaired and repainted this one, but it was never quite the same. I still have it somewhere in my basement, but after a second fall where the headstock broke again, it's more or less just an heirloom now.

W.

 

[chrisrocksusa]

Sounds like a common sense issue. I wouldn't have expensive equipment laying around in a room where a toddler is knocking about

 

[Jerrod]

Sounds like a common sense issue. I wouldn't have expensive equipment laying around in a room where a toddler is knocking about

Don't be a schmuck.

 

[chrisrocksusa]

Don't be a schmuck.

All due respect to the OP. wasn't trying to sass him, just seems like a predictable and easily avoidable fiasco...

 

[slap dat]

They never got to my guitars, but my son once drew pictures on the hood of my fairly new car with a lava rock from the garden.

 

[Drew68]

My 2-year old loves my guitars! I try and keep most of them put away in a secured closet (which kinda sucks as I don't play them nearly as much as when they were all laying about). I'll let him play with my Telecaster as I figured that's the one guitar he couldn't possibly break. He's relicing the finish nicely though. Every time I pick it up, I see more chips in the paint, or "mojo" if you will.

 

[samdjr74]

My son who is 10 months old often tries to pull my guitars over on top of him. I'm pretty quick to grab him but he's also pretty stong and the other day he grabbed on to my Peters Nomad and almost pulled it on top of him. The problem was I was holding the neck and it was like a tug of war with the little guy, I still won!!!!

 

[semi-hollowbody]

My daughter is 3 and very careful with my guitars
However she puts the stomp in stomp box

 

[Guitarworks]

Anything we don't want our kids even approaching, including certain guitars, stays in a case securely packed away and out of reach of little hands. But they routinely see dad playing, building, sanding, painting and tweaking guitars, so they are naturally curious and want to strum and futz with them. So I leave out a couple inexpensive daily drivers for them and me to play with - a partscaster and a 12-string offshore Epi acoustic. The kids don't play too rough with them and neither one has been damaged. I built the strat rugged for gigging survival and it can handle just about anything they dish out.

 

[Smakutus]

When I first met my wife I would leave my 74 sunburst LP Deluxe on a stand in the living room. Her two kids wouldn't mess with the guitar, but one day I discovered a 3" or so curved line in the finish.. (Like a can bottom hit it or something.) I still don't know what made the line but if you have my old Deluxe and wondered how it got there, my step kids did it. (I think..)

Jeff

 

[buddyboy69]

wasburn acoustic in corner. destructive toddler. washburn on floor, headstock under table. guitars in cases and up on walls. thank god it was the crappiest guitar i owned.

 

[Twangdaddy]

When I was a home dad in 1998, my 3-year-old kiddo came into the kitchen carrying my 1958 Guild T-100D with a big smile. He was trying to be like Daddy. It tumbled out of his arms and snapped the headstock clean off. Sent it back to Guild in Westerly, RI, and the top repair guy, Guido, replaced it with a new Bluesbird neck (the '58 had been previously peg-repaired from another headstock break and saving it was not possible, even for Guido). They even put the old serial number on the new neck. Overall, not a bad experience. I'd rather my guitar break than one of my son's limbs. Wot the hell - it's only a guitar.

 

[KazJY]

When I was a kid, I remember trying to get through a doorway with my Dad's 1964 Gibson B-25 acoustic. the guitar did not fit horizontally. Remarkably, the neck was ok, but my chest/stomach went into the back of the guitar a bit.

I now own that guitar, and the cracks in the back bring back memories (I recently found out what it would cost to fix.... ouch.

 

[Sweetfinger]

Kids, pets, and cleaning ladies provide a significant portion of my headstock repair business.

 

[vbf]

It's sometimes unavoidable....kids are gonna damage stuff. I consider myself a very careful person but you can't safeguard guitars 100% unless they never get played. It's part of having kids and it's not their fault.

 

[pukko]

When I was 3 years old my dad had a red Hagstrom II. I decided it would look cooler in black and started repainting it with a permanent marker pen.

Almost 20 years later I had bought a 1987 PRS Custom. I was sitting in front of the TV and asked my girlfriend (who was on the other side of the room) to give me the remote. Instead of handing it over she threw it across the room... Put a nice ding on the top of the guitar.

My then 3 year old daughter gave my dad some late revenge when she dropped a Swiss Army knife (no blade out of course) on my MIJ Fender Esquire taking a big paint chip out of the back of the top horn. Made me realise how thick the finish is on those guitars...

 

[mfitz804]

Sounds like a common sense issue. I wouldn't have expensive equipment laying around in a room where a toddler is knocking about

Umm, yeah. You had a guitar on a stand with a kid just learning to walk. Not your best decision.