How damaging would it be to put a guitar in a pool?

PolarityMan

This is probably a crazy idea but as the kids have the huge 3m diameter above ground pool up in the garden I was wondering if I could use it to do some kind of underwater guitar playing shots for videos. Obviously I wouldnt do this with a good guitar but was wondering jsut how damaging it would be to a guitar if immediately dried off again afterwards?

Is it going to basically hose the guitar? I would of coiurse buy a cheap harley benton for the purposes but seems a cit destructive if its basically going to be scrap wood afterwards. 

markj

Completely knackered.

fretmeister

I think you'd have to completely disassemble it afterwards if it was going to dry properly and even then you don't know how well the wood has been sealed - if at all.

And you will never ever get the shot you want in 1 take. So it's going to be soaking wet for multiple takes. Even if you dry between you'll never get it dry under the pickups like that.

The neck will probably fill up with water along the truss rod too.

If you really want to do this - get a £20 "parts only" beater from ebay.

Fiddlesticks_

I’m speculating a bit here but if you immediately dismantled it and left it to dry out thoroughly then I’d think that it would be OK.

EDIT: as per fretmeister above - perhaps not so easily…

CavemanGrogg

PolarityMan said:

This is probably a crazy idea but as the kids have the huge 3m diameter above ground pool up in the garden I was wondering if I could use it to do some kind of underwater guitar playing shots for videos. Obviously I wouldnt do this with a good guitar but was wondering jsut how damaging it would be to a guitar if immediately dried off again afterwards?

Is it going to basically hose the guitar? I would of coiurse buy a cheap harley benton for the purposes but seems a cit destructive if its basically going to be scrap wood afterwards. 

If you can dry it out properly, which is very  very hard to do, and will require you to basically break the guitar down to it's individual parts, you'll have no issues, even with the electronics, but again really not easy to properly dry out.  There was a YouTube video doing the rounds perhaps 7 years ago filmed in South America, of a guitar tech who literally was ''washing'' an R9 in a basin full of soapy water, he then dries it off, sets it up, plugs it in, and the bloody thing worked.  I personally wouldn't do it with a guitar I cared about in the slightest way, one that I would bin insteasd of repair, like a HB or Squire, yeh for a laugh maybe.

PolarityMan

fretmeister said:

I think you'd have to completely disassemble it afterwards if it was going to dry properly and even then you don't know how well the wood has been sealed - if at all.

And you will never ever get the shot you want in 1 take. So it's going to be soaking wet for multiple takes. Even if you dry between you'll never get it dry under the pickups like that.

The neck will probably fill up with water along the truss rod too.

If you really want to do this - get a £20 "parts only" beater from ebay.

Just an idle thought tbh, techincally it should really be a 7 string too which would be harder to find a beater for but prob no one would notice anyways. 

PAL

Not a good idea !

guitars4you

Memory bank time now, but wasn't there a Madness video from years ago of the band, or part of the band, playing in a pool 

Caffeine_Vampire

Henry Juszkiewicz?  Is that you?

EricTheWeary

guitars4you said:

Memory bank time now, but wasn't there a Madness video from years ago of the band, or part of the band, playing in a pool 

Yes although I can't think which song. There was a bit of jumping in and out of swimming pools with instruments in 1980s pop videos. 

fastonebaz

Dunk it in candle wax beforehand to waterproof it, that'll be fine. 

bluecat

Never ever heard of anything so ridiculous in my life. Should be banned from owning any guitar for at least 25 years.

octatonic

PolarityMan said:

as the kids have the huge 3m diameter above ground pool up in the garden

#humblebrag 

idiotwind

EricTheWeary said:

guitars4you said:

Memory bank time now, but wasn't there a Madness video from years ago of the band, or part of the band, playing in a pool 

Yes although I can't think which song. There was a bit of jumping in and out of swimming pools with instruments in 1980s pop videos. 

It Must Be Love

Grumpyrocker

Better off trying to achieve the same thing in photoshop.

munckee

Didn’t poopots (god bless him) ex missus put his tele in a paddling pool once?

Lebarque

HAL9000

Get a Revstar - I believe the push-pull tone pot acts as a ‘dry’ switch, or perhaps an S-type with a swimming pool rout.

Jonathangus

Is this what they mean by a wet/dry rig?

Sassafras

Forget guitars. The real rock & roll thing to do is drive a Rolls Royce into a swimming pool.

digitalkettle

fastonebaz said:

Dunk it in candle wax beforehand to waterproof it, that'll be fine. 

...and much better feedback resistance as a bonus!