Over the years I've read posting tell about the awesome guitars have played, but I'm curious what awful guitars you've played.

I have two stories.

I owned a Tele with a Bisby vibrato that was just unruly. Changing strings was a nightmare and there was this "rattle" I could not get rid of no matter what I did to stop it.

I also made the mistake of purchasing a Mexican made Strat. It sounded so hollow. There was nothing nice about this guitar. Why I bought it is a long a crazy story, but leave it to say I unloaded the guitar quickly.


Paris

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1975 Sunburst Stratocaster rosewood finger board
1979 Stratocaster with roseowood finder board
2001 Candy Green Clapton Stratocaster
2007 Andy Summers Inspired Telecaster
2007 '51 P-Bass
2012 Taylor 110
2015 Mystic Ice Blue Deluxe Stratocaster Plus

I can understand the issue with the Bigsby but Mexican Strats are generally well done, for the past few years now, which makes your observation quite surprising.

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"Another day in paradise!"

i went with a friend to guitar center and aching to try a gibson es 335 the one with binding on the neck,
thinking that the guitar would sound like a dream, the tone sucked, it would go out of tune quickly, knobs felt cheap.
i thought for 2700, he had the cash to buy that guitar then he tried an epiphone sheraton
and sounded awesome.
i was turned off by gibson for a long time.

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"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present."

oogway, kungfu panda 2008

the worst guitar i have ever played is one i'm stuck with until i get my own to use in college... a knockoff strat which looks real except for lack of logo... it barely stays in tune

I agree that MIM are fine instruments. I just happen to find one that wasn't.

As for the Bigsby I love the way they work. They have smoother action than the Fender style bridge. I just hate changing strings and the nasty rattling sound. I think it came from something loose in the bridge. Again it could have just been the one I had.

I feel that the Bigby could be improved by lengthening or curving the pegs that hold the stings. Also I'm not a big fan of the bridge that Fender uses. I feel that the Gibson style bridge is better for this device.

Get the nut checked out.

I'm not a big fan of the material that Gibson uses for their nuts. I have own a few Gibsons and I found that the "B" and "G" strings never stay in tune.

To my mind bone is a good material for guitar nuts.

Also if I were to buy an ES335 I would buy one from the 60s or 70s. The necks feel better to me.

a no name kiddie spiderman guitar with a built in amp and a jazz bass pickup.

no not really, that one did suck,but the worst I've played is one of those plastic toys-R-us guitars.

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I LIKE PIE!!!!!

IF I DO SOMETHING STUPID,DON'T SAY A WORD...

How about the guitar God of the home shopping network....Esteban !!

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"I like the way he puts Yngwie J. Malmsteen on his album covers. You know,....so you don't confuse him with all the other Yngwie Malmsteens in the business"


2008 Fender MIM Stratocaster
2010 Epiphone Masterbilt
2009 Fender Super Champ XD

in 35+ years playing I haven't come across a worse guitar than the Malibu SCAE I picked up a few yrs. back when they "re-released" it.

It was an early Chinese mfgd. wreck, terrible tone, terrible neck, cheapest electronics and tuners that could be found on this planet, non existant fret finishing......I was ( and still am to a degree) absolutely shocked that Fender would put its name on such a bad product.
the '74 Harmony Hummingbird copy I got for my 11th b-day was a better guit than the Malibu
it was also the last and final time i'll ever buy a guitar still in the box.

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You won't hurt its feelings boy, play it like you stole it!
ASPCA We Are Their Voice !
Speaking up for those that can't speak for theirself.....
Proud member of the ASPCA "Guardian Angel" program.

There's been much in 'Vintage Guitar ' magazines nostalgia about the old Harmony and Kay guitars of the '50's. That being 'back in the day' for me I can vouch for the fact that the economy Harmony arch top acoustics of that day weren't half bad but the Kays had necks like baseball bats and the setups were abominable.

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"Another day in paradise!"

Increasingly, I find we need to look backwards to find the turkeys of the guitar world.

With the speed of light developments in the Far East, it's getting very hard to find a genuinely bad guitar. When I think of the Hondo Les Paul I used to noodle around on, and other 'me too' cheap (affordable) guitars my friends had (Zenda, Avon, Columbus etc) I have to say we are now living in something of a golden age.

And even the once complacent Super Stars of guitar manufacture - Fender, Gibson etc, have risen to the challenge of the budget companies. Fender especially so, who's products now have argualbly never been better. Gibson are slower turning things around, but they are getting there.

I'd have killed for a guitar of even Squier quality 30 years ago.

For the record, the worst I ever had was an SG copy by Avon with a copy Bigsby on it. It was barely playable and sounded like a six voice stylophone. It had neck whip like you wouldn't believe, and the intonation was a lottery.

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Fender Highway & Classic 60s Strats, Fender Toronado, Telecaster, Gretsch Projet, Charvel 3, PRS SE Soapbar II & Custom 24, Burns Batwing and many others!

it's not my guitar it's a guitar that belongs to this guy from a bar close to my dorm he lets me play it every now and then for me to keep playing... pickups are muddy too... hate the tone...

........50 years ago

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"Another day in paradise!"

A few years back while between bands, I was asked to sit in with a quartet for a couple of sets on New Years Eve when their rhythm guitarist blitzed himself on Wild Turkey and tequila. His Gibson Les Paul Standard was absolutely the worst guitar I have ever played with dead strings, incorrect intonation, too much neck relief, and some horrid EMG pickups. Playing that instrument was akin to threading a sewing needle with AWG-18 speaker wire. It was so bad that even my wife could sense the guitar had some serious issues and took off for home to bring me my trusted Strat. Thankfully the saloon was only about a ten-minute car ride away!

His amp wasn't anything to write home about either (some kind of stack thing that was controlled only by footswitch) but I managed to squeeze a usable tone or two from it.



Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY