GaryTheStone

Old school blink shirt for anyone interested.. https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F222909071466

The magical sticker man, who goes by the name of 'Sticky Steve' !!

Horses for courses! I had to go to the end, how it would of looked the last second before Tom decided to take them all off & it no longest existed in that form! Sad day #ripstickerstrat There are a few that wern't in exactly the right place but I had to let it go as, Damn those stickers are sticky!!! Every placement has a knock on effect to ones later on, & once the layers build up your already committed to where there going to stay hahah. I took five hours putting mine on! Stressful day!!

Ive never known or seen a flight case to come with any guitars new!!

Probably was, they don't come up anymore! Make me an offer, I'm probably gonna put it back on eBay at some point!

It is, but it's a size small!

Just finished mine..

Thanks! I've gone for 500k all round, gonna try it out tonight at practice as I've just got it back and haven't played it plugged in yet..

The body & neck I used from a hotrails deluxe, like I say stood me £65, but it all depends on if you can get hold of one secondhand & how much you pay!! I changed the bridge pivot screws to flathead fender chrome ones which cost about £15 with the inserts & I had to drill the body to fit them but you don't have to do that if you don't want too. I also cut the headstock down as it's a 70s shape. I oiled the fret board with lemon oil & then with boiled linseed oil to darken it as Tom's is quite dark on the sticker strat, oil was around £10, again, not something you have to do! The black graphtech saddles were £30 But the ones that come with the guitar are fine just depends on what look you want! The pick guard was £8 brand new from eBay, I used all genuine fender parts for the volume, tone, pickup selector & tuners, but you can keep the original tuners on, mine were £37, £8 for the knobs, £11 for the selector switch, I also used 500k cts pots for the volume & tones which were £5.50 each & a bone nut which was £4.50. Then you've got the three pickups, I got all three used for £100 from eBay, just keep an eye out for when they come up! Then you've got the price of the stickers & for me the price of getting it wired & setup as I can't do this myself! So around the £300 mark (but £100 less if you keep the original tuners, saddles & get unbranded parts) then stickers & guitar tech. So for me total price is going to around £450. I'm picking it up next week from my guitar tech then I'll we putting the stickers on! This is the hotrails deluxe, I think it was mentioned somewhere on a previous post, but it's the right colour & has the two point trem, you'll just have to reshape the headstock!

Cheers man. This hasn't been too pricey really, I haven't worked it out properly yet, but it was just tracking down the guitar with the two point trem in the right colour that took a while coz I didn't really wanna get into painting it, but I got this guitar for £135 & I sold the scratch plate with the pickups off of it for £70, so the body & neck only stood me £65! I could do I complete rundown for you if you wanted, it might be a lot more doable than you think!

The guitars finished & been sent off to my guitar tech to be wired, have the bone nut set in & fully set up! I ended up sanding the headstock down a bit as I noticed Tom's looked slightly lighter in colour & I oiled the fretboard to darken it! I also cut & reshaped the headstock as it was originally a 70s style headstock but it was the only 22 fret neck i could get hold of, i foins most are 21! Should be getting it back next week then I can start stickering!!

For the people that have built a Tom Delonge sticker strat, I'm curious to know what pots you used for the volume & tones? Originally Tom's strat would of had three single coils so would of had three 250k pots, but I wonder if they would of been left in when the pickups were changed or if the volume was changed to a 500k as there was the x2n humbucker in the bridge & usually you would use a 500k with a humbucker! What did you guys use as the difference in pots would change the sound of the pickups quite a bit, so I'm curious to what your thoughts are & to know what to use for mine?! Some people prefer 250k's or 300k's to 500k's in single coils & or humbuckers & vice versa, I just don't know what to try & dont wanna end up with it sounded not quite right..or am I just being mega anal?! I hope some of what I've put makes sence to some of you!!

Also when the saddles were changed, I've got a feeling they were changed to graphtech (the black ones) these also have quite a big effect on the tone aswel, & would of contributed to Tom's sound. If you look closely they are offset saddles. I think the strings trees were changed at some point aswel as some pictures they are chrome & others they look black. Maybe also to graphtech as they came out in 1990 so people started changing to them the time Tom had that guitar. They also eliminate string breakage!

Looking into the graphtech saddles, they were first brought out in 1990 & they make an offset version of Strat saddles where the screw that goes through the bridge into the saddle is over to one side rather than central. I was then looking at the saddles on Tom's Strat & noticed that all of his are offset too, something I hadn't picked up on before! So I'm pretty sure that Tom did have his original Fender saddles changed to graphtech ones! If you zoom in to the saddles in the picture you'll see that they are offset. This is a link to the graphtech ones : http://www.stringsdirect.co.uk/parts-c4/bridge-parts-c685/saddles-c686/graph-tech-graphtech-string-saver-saddle-set-strat-off-set-6-pcs-p5483

Does anybody think that maybe Tom's Saddles were changed from the original chrome saddles to the black ones as they might have been graphite which would of helped massively with breaking strings & also made a difference in the tone aswel? I might be wrong but I don't get why you would just swap the saddles for no reason unless there was an issue or to gain something from it? What are people's opinions or ideas to why?