The Unofficial Martin Guitar forum is a mine of interesting and inspiring information for anyone who owns a Martin guitar.
Until you check out the thread on the worst guitar accidents. 
That’s just a collection of guitar horror stories, nightmares and worst-case scenarios come true.
We read out about one poor guy who backed over his guitar with his pick-up truck. A stage hand whips a microphone cable across the stage, catches the foot of a guitar and launches it headstock first into the air. Someone walks through a narrow doorway with a guitar on a strap; the guitar gets decapitated. An over-excited dog leaves gouge-marks on the surface and, of course, there are plenty of stories of instruments being knocked over, dropped and generally mistreated.
Most of those accidents are a result of absentmindedness or bad luck but a few “accidents” are a bit more worrying. One forum member talks about playing his Gibson Chet Atkins outside his house for a small group of neighbors.
As soon as the guitar came into contact with my right forearm the finish stared to melt away under my very eyes.
The musician figures out that the deet in the bug spray is reacting with the chemicals on his guitar’s finish. He notices it pretty quickly and gets away lightly but a couple of other guitar-owners were less lucky.
The Guitar’s Silent Killer
One owner of a Martin guitar describes how he left his instrument in the trunk of a car after a show.
A cold front blew in dropping temps from the low 80’s to the mid-30’s. When I got home I left it in the case to let it acclimate and then opened it up to find the binding on the top, from neck to mid waist had come loose.
Martin was able to fix it but another musician was less lucky with the weather. He, too, left his guitar in its case in the trunk of a car, this time after a day spent skiing.
upon opening the guitar case watched (and heard) the surfaces all crack, the bindings all come off… yeah, lesson learned the hard way.
The problem with those incidents is that the damage is so unexpected. Walk through a narrow door with a guitar slung sideways and there can only ever be one result — and it’s not going to be pretty. Leave your guitar on a ledge and you might as well leave a gun in the first act of an Ibsen play. It will, inevitably, go off.
Read our 4 tips and tricks to save you guitar
