Worst damage you have done to a nice uke...

Mopey

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So I posted a couple of days ago about my new Anuenue Tenor. Yesterday I hit the back against a dinning table chair and made a tiny dent in the uke. Today I picked the case up and it I had not zipped it up - the uke literally did a forward role on to the wooden floor!

So that's a small scratch and dent in less than 1 week. I have vowed to treat it with a bit more care from now on!

No real harm done and I am trying to pretend I don't care but help me out by sharing some of your ukulele self inflicted damage stories!
 
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I placed my Tokai 'Cats Eyes' solid mahogany soprano in the rear foot well of the car. It was in a softish, padded bag. Later, I folded the rear seats forward, not realising that they also drop into a lower position. Ouch!

I was able to make a decent structural repair, but every time I look at it, I wince.

All part of life's rich pattern!

John Colter
 
Ouch! I can just imagine the panic that must have caused at the time! :p
 
Luckily all of my new ukes haven't received any abuse so far. However, I did damage my vintage Martin when changing strings. One string was stuck in the bridge slot so I had to use pliers to get it out. Of course when the string was released the pliers hit the soundboard and left a scratch mark of a few centimetres. I suppose I was lucky since the uke is already quite scratched and dented what with it being a vintage instrument but I still wasn't too happy with myself...
 
Luckily all of my new ukes haven't received any abuse so far. However, I did damage my vintage Martin when changing strings. One string was stuck in the bridge slot so I had to use pliers to get it out. Of course when the string was released the pliers hit the soundboard and left a scratch mark of a few centimetres. I suppose I was lucky since the uke is already quite scratched and dented what with it being a vintage instrument but I still wasn't too happy with myself...

I did a similar thing trying to get a bridge pin out of a Kanilea concert years ago, very annoying!
 
Like you, I put my uke in a case, closed the lid (got distracted by someone talking to me at a jam) and did not latch. Picked up case and out tumbled my sweet Pono bari. Left a little dent on lower bout bass side (right where I could easily see it). This was years ago; now I never close any case lid without latching. Lesson learned. I see people lean their uke against a chair or wall and I cringe...then they are surprised when it inevitably tumbles to the ground (people have done this even at jams on hard surfaces like concrete (ouch).
 
thanks guys this is making me feel better :)

I have a real nice requinto guitar that just a few weeks ago I laid across my lap while I bent over to pick up a song book. It slid down my legs and banged into the music stand. OOOoooh!!! And it all happened so fast too - just a millisecond. I mean it wasn’t that horrible of a ding and it’s on the bottom of the guitar, but still - that was a bummer. I’ve been “pretending not to care” as the OP said.

I told myself this little story: Imagine if you went to the Smithsonian one day to see Keith Richard’s guitar, and when you got there you were surprised to see that it was completely immaculate without a scratch on it - totally pristine. And you ask the curator - how can this be? And the curator says “oh yes Mr. Richards always insists that his guitars go straight into their cases with the upmost care........etc. etc”. Wouldn’t you be disappointed a little?
 
I was using a Straps for Chords strap on my KoAloha Concert (2004 Koa model), and the soft ends of the Straps for Chords strap let go as I was walking with the ukulele in my classroom, which has a terrazzo floor (very, very hard institutional construction). While I was able to catch the ukulele, the bottom hit the ground and cracked the joint a little (about a half inch) on one side where the sound board meets the side.

This was an incredible second-hand instrument store find, and as I lamented the damage, I noticed the bridge was solid, but lifted...so I contacted KoAloha, and they let me know that some older models had that problem, and that I should send it in. So I did.

They had to take off the bridge and had to completely refinish the ukulele, and as they did that, they repaired the damage from the drop. I didn't ask for that or expect it. But when it came back...it was perfect. And I now use "Strap Locks" (rubber washers) with that ukulele and any other of value.

Also...when you buy that expensive KoAloha (even used), that "Better Than the Weather" warranty is the real deal. They have a customer for life (and I have five different KoAloha products in the house--but only one Koa model).
 
I was using a Straps for Chords strap on my KoAloha Concert (2004 Koa model), and the soft ends of the Straps for Chords strap let go as I was walking with the ukulele in my classroom, which has a terrazzo floor (very, very hard institutional construction).

That's exactly the same thing that happened to me 6 years ago on a one week old Kala solid cedar top tenor. The drop cracked the finish on the front side of the lower bout top edge, and the top corner of the head stock, both superficial, so I decided that makes my tenor unique from any other Kala cedar top. I was using a Lakota strap that's made of very soft leather, too soft because it slips off the strap buttons easily. I now only only use stiffer leather straps.


This is Michael Kohan in Los Angeles, Beverly Grove near the Beverly Center
9 tenor cutaway ukes, 4 acoustic bass ukes, 12 solid body bass ukes, 14 mini electric bass guitars (Total: 39)

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children in hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers: YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video, Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheCCStrummers
 
My three year old grand daughter asked me to sing "you are my sunshine" for her. My Mainland ukulele was leaning on the wall next to my chair and I was busy answering an email for work. I told her to take it to grandma and ask her to sing it. I told her to be very careful. She was, she carefully took it into the other room where my wife was also working and told her she would in a few minutes. My grand daughter shrugged her shoulders and tossed the ukulele. What are you going to do? I mean, who in his right mind lets a three year old run around with a nice ukulele? Only myself to blame. It hit a solid wood floor right on the edge of the front lower bout. Put a big crack in the top and separated about two inches of the binding. I ended up jamming a hole saw in the crack to relieve it so that I could glue and clamp everything back together. I filled the saw kerf with some epoxy putty. It still plays just fine. It is a little ugly there where I repaired it, but only if you look at it..
 
Hey, accidents happen. The first scar is always the worst, but now you don't have to worry about that anymore.

A few weeks back, when I first started and not used to carrying ukuleles, I bang them on door frames, walls, music stands, all kinds of things very often. Fortunately, those ukuleles still sound the same. If I don't care to sell them, then there's really no real loss.

But, as they say, misery loves company. Here, somebody just scratched his new CBR.
 
I was checking on the humidpacks in some hard cases. In a total brain-fart moment of inattention, I set one case on top of another, which was on a table, and as I moved away to get a new pack, the Crossrock ABS case with rough diamond pattern surface slid off the similar case under it and fell into a newly acquired Opio Spruce/Acacia tenor sitting in a floor stand. The Opio, with its 5-pointed headstock, then went sideways with some speed and force, and did a header into the soundboard of a solid Black Walnut MP Cali tenor.

The end results were a deep 1/2" gash in the Cali's soundboard. Plus on the headstock of the Opio, several dings and the back edge of one of the points flattened from the impact. The ukulele in the latched case was unscathed.

A real twofer. No structural damage. And both play just fine. It took a couple of months before I could bear to look at them without self-castigation.

[Now I only lay prostrate before my Ko'Aloha alter for 1 hr instead of five. And I have ceased the self-flagilation because my back and shoulders were too stiff to play my ukuleles. ;) ]

Needless to say, I am very cautious when I set a case or ukulele down.

To digress:
Clear, your video reminded me of my brand new 1987 RX-7. I had only owned it for a month when I went to visit my friends in Cincinnati, OH. I let my friend drive my car and he decided to drive the curves aggressively on a hilly road. We went around a blind curve somewhat left of center right in front of an oncoming car. My friend jinked right but the RX was tagged in the left rear side. Which was actually fortunate because otherwise we would have flown straight over a 20 ft drop 40°-ish embankment. The hit straightened the car and we went over the edge sliding sideways at a much reduced speed and slid down the gravel-covered bank to the bottom. Thankfully, we didn't catch a root or anything which would have caused us to roll. We just slid, scrubbing off speed, to the bottom into some mud.

I was able to drive it home after the tow truck winched it back up to the road. My insurance had to pay for all repairs to both cars. The road had been scheduled to have a guardrail installed the following week. My friend is still my friend.
 
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The town my wife has her yarn shop is has a Holiday Walkabout every year between December 1 and December 24, and I've usually been engaged to play there for the day (I get [aid the same hourly rate as my wife and her partners get - Nothing. I'm going to ask for twice that amount this year!)

A couple of years back, my musical partner and I were taking a 10 minute break, and talking about the next set. My Donaldson was on my best instrument stand, adjacent to a bookcase where they keep knitting notions, but a good foot in front of it, and 6 inches to the side. Suddenly I heard a "Thunk!" followed by a glissando...

One of my wife's partners had decided to move things around on the bookcase, and knocked something - I still don't know what -laterally off the shelf, and it hit the soundboard, then bounced off the strings.

There is about a 1/4" wide, shallow but visible indentation in the Port Orford Cedar. The look on my musical partners face was one of fear and surprise, knowing what had happened, and I was almost afraid to look...

When I picked it up, before I checked for damage, I looked at the shop partner, and said "You realize that this is a custom-built instrument, impossible to replace, and you were moving heavy things above it..."

She is often in her own little world, and looked at me, looked at the uke, looked back at me, shrugged, and went back to what she was doing...

Another time, I had my Moku slip out of my fingers (sometimes between the carpel tunnel, and the damaged nerve in my shoulder, my had goes numb), fall about 4 feet to a hardwood floor, and crack the thick shiny polyurethane-looking stuff where the lower bout and the back meet. Took a small chunks of poly out, and slight cracking... I was terrified I'd broken the uke - it didn't sound right, weird harmonics on every string... It was, to me, a horrible sound, but everyone else at the Uke Night said it sounded good.

Then I took my Brand-Spanking-New hearing aids out, and everything sounded fine.

So far, that's it...



So far. I've only been playing 11-ish years...
 
Last week, while removing a paperback book from my music stand, the cover of the book separated and the inside pages fell onto my favorite ukulele (only a few months old). My uke was in my lap as I was changing books. The corner of the book hit first and put a 1.5" scratch just under the bridge. I'm not gonna lie, it hurt for a good 24 hours but I'm over it now. There'll be more to come I'm sure.
 
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I started drilling the hole for a strap button on the bass side of the neck heel of my Cordoba 24T .. :rolleyes:
Oopsies!
 
And I forgot to mention the damage my Vagabond Travel Guitar took many years ago; It was on a chair, and I jostled a bookcase, and a Physician's Desk Reference fell 4-5 feet, landing dead on the pick guard...


The top is split from the sound hole to the binding, adjacent to the bridge.

I simply loosened the strings to "floppy", and it is hanging up - The only instrument I have without a hard shell case, to be honest. I'll have it repaired, one of these days... I planned to bring it to Kevin Smith, the Luthier, but he seems to have disappeared. At least from Kinderhook, NY.
 
I walk with a cane, and yet managed to trip carrying my Outdoor tenor ukulele. Uke hit the ground first, then my knee came down on the neck, cracking it all the way to the fretboard. A nearly indestructible uke, and yet I managed to kill it. I now put all my instruments in a hard case before so much as standing up.
 
I started drilling the hole for a strap button on the bass side of the neck heel of my Cordoba 24T .. :rolleyes:
Oopsies!

Oh man, I did that too to one of my tenors. I was home with the flu for almost a week. (Remember those innocent days?) And had taken my afternoon meds: a strong cough syrup, antihistamine, and prednisone. Couldn't go to sleep so I got the brilliant idea to mount a strap button to the side of the heel. I used another uke to make sure I was placing it correctly for the straps use. Double checked it twice. Yet in my somewhat fevered codeine state I still managed to start drill on the wrong side of the heel. I still have a hard time looking at the hole that mocks me. And reminds me not to work on my ukes when I am in an impaired condition. It only takes once... :p
 
I had bug spray on when playing my Kamaka and now where my forearm rests, the finish has been eaten away down to the wood and there’s a palm print on it. It’s mine forever because my prints are literally all over it.
 
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