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It's funny. I don't really care for Tom DeLonge, but I love his guitars. His Strat is on my list of guitars I want (and is one of only two strats I'd willingly buy). Maybe one day I'll actually buy a signature guitar from a player whose music I do enjoy.

Like all of my recent acquisitions, this one came out of the classifieds. The seller wanted $275, I offered $250, which was accepted.

We met at a storage unit which was full of guitars, basses, amps, and some retail displays, so I think this was the inventory from a shop that went out of business. Nothing really stood out to me from the rest of the stuff, other than a 5 string Stingray bass. When I saw the condition it was in, I lowered my offer to $200, which the seller accepted. So I took the guitar home with me.

The neck had a bit of forward bow, frets need dressing, guitar needs a good cleanup all around, all the metal bits was pitted or rusting, and the strings were orange. The electronics worked perfectly though, which is nice since the polepieces on the Dirty Fingers HB are rusted and that concerned me.

It has a baseball bat neck, which I thought would be uncomfortable, but it's not. It's just not something i'm used to. And the tone. well, this is a punk guitar, and it does that just fine. But she can also do cleans, not jangly, but good enough. You just need to back off on the volume to control this beast.

Not a lot pics at the moment (Well, one pic of the serial number sticker, and the one from the classifieds), because I immediately dropped her off at a friend's house who is a tech to get the issues sorted out. Soon though.

Anyway... the serial number and the classifieds pic:

Nice guitar, though I'm not too keen on the poo brown colour. I have the squier version of his strat, in seafoam green. Got it when I was 13 I think, 8 years ago. Don't use it much anymore because of the pickup config, but I do love the look of it and the playability is great. One day I will route it for a pair of single coils.

I have the surf green Fender sig, and I love it. I also love Blink 182, they're the main reason I know how to play guitar now. I don't care what anyone says! I use it with a lot of the student bands I teach and they love it. It sounds good clean to me, albeit with alot of breakup, but I love that sound. It's definitely not that versatile, and I only use it with the student bands that play songs that I only need a bridge pickup for. I will own one of those epiphone sigs one day too.

I had the Squier version of the TD strat, loved the sound but liked the playability less the more I played it. I have been eye balling the ES 333. Does the neck feel like a casino one?

And pics!

What's under the cover at the end of the neck?

Mo Rawka wrote:What's under the cover at the end of the neck?

Not a lot. Just this:



And some other gut shots

Mo Rawka wrote:What's under the cover at the end of the neck?

Neck tenon. Usually at the bottom of a neck pickup cavity.

There's a lot of guitarists I don't rate who's sig gear is pretty sweet. Ace Frehley's LP takes the cake for me, as well as the Fender Stu Hamm bass and the '90s Marshall JCM Slash heads (actually reissues of the Silver Jubilee). Reading Kim's thread the other day had me thinking a Malmsteen Marshall would solve any/all problems I ever experience amp-wise.

Shortscale San Diegans are noticeably absent from any thread having to do with Blink. I remember seeing them open for the Muffs at SOMA nearly 20 years ago. They were fucking awful.

ha ha, blink has some fun riffs.

that guitar is one of my all-time faves. the rust on the bucker and ring screws is concerning.

gotta love the rear access. wish my dot had that.

grats dude, totes jelly. keep me in mind if you want to sell.

hotrodperlmutter wrote:the rust on the bucker and ring screws is concerning.

I think that's fixed by just replacing the screws and moving on.

hotrodperlmutter wrote:gotta love the rear access. wish my dot had that.

That's the same thing all of my 335/Casino/Sheraton loving friends have said. My tech, who despises DeLonge and the idea of a DeLonge guitar, has been swayed by that alone.

hotrodperlmutter wrote:grats dude, totes jelly. keep me in mind if you want to sell.

Dibs, should I decide to sell, are yours.

mkt3000 wrote:

hotrodperlmutter wrote:the rust on the bucker and ring screws is concerning.

I think that's fixed by just replacing the screws and moving on.

s'that how you remedy a mysterious hair problem on your hardwoods, by not interrogating the cat, and just sweeping it under the rug?

i just bring it up because they're really rusty for a not very old guitar. was it left outside? did it get beer spilled on it? left in a gnarly basement? there's an awful lot of pitting on the bridge and tailpiece, too. acid sweatz?

if it's not concerning for you, that's fine, but the adverts for the 911's with super rusty undercarriages from Post-Katrina NOLA are the ones i usually :\ at. still lovely, hopefully it's just mojo. i'm assuming the pickup and pots are not rusty and perform well?

easily could be rusty just from moisture in the air. he does live in puerto rico.

hotrodperlmutter wrote:

mkt3000 wrote:

hotrodperlmutter wrote:the rust on the bucker and ring screws is concerning.

I think that's fixed by just replacing the screws and moving on.

s'that how you remedy a mysterious hair problem on your hardwoods, by not interrogating the cat, and just sweeping it under the rug?

i just bring it up because they're really rusty for a not very old guitar. was it left outside? did it get beer spilled on it? left in a gnarly basement? there's an awful lot of pitting on the bridge and tailpiece, too. acid sweatz?

if it's not concerning for you, that's fine, but the adverts for the 911's with super rusty undercarriages from Post-Katrina NOLA are the ones i usually :\ at. still lovely, hopefully it's just mojo. i'm assuming the pickup and pots are not rusty and perform well?

This guitar was pulled out of a storage unit with other guitars that (I have since discovered) were the final inventory at a guitar shop that went out of business in 2009. My guitar could very well be an NOS 2008 guitar (or more than likely the store demo, since it had some wear, but the plastic on the little black pickguard bit was still on). The strings were rusted orange, and it was in need of a setup, but on the inside, it is blemish free. The pot works perfectly, and it is perfect. The only damage was a ding on the backside, which I covered up with a layer of clear nail polish (humid island solution for exposed unfinished wood on guitars).

My friend Guillermo owns one of these, but the Gibson version. I compared them, and they sound quite similar, so I'm going to assume that the pickup is fine. Also, the rust is just surface rust on the parts exposed to the air. I pulled out a polepiece a bit, and the part that wasn't exposed is bright and shiny. Same for the other screws I've removed. This is how I got my 78 Musicmaster... but I opted to gut it and start from the ground up since the electronics it had were close to dead.

Mages wrote:easily could be rusty just from moisture in the air. he does live in puerto rico.

Bingo. I stopped buying cheap amps because I'd end up replacing all of the wood panels in a few years

hotrodperlmutter wrote:

What's funny is that I'm the whitest dude you'd ever meet.

awesome, that's what i wanted to hear. good snag, bro bro.