Fender Tom Delonge Signature Stratocaster

2002 Tom Delonge Stratocaster. Made in Mexico.
I got mine in Black with a pearloid Pickguard.
I must say, that i am not a fan of Blink 182..Nor do i own any music worked on by Tom Delonge. I do however love this guitar. 21 Medium/Jumbo Frets.
The guitar has a string through/Hard Tail bridge. Seymour Duncan SH-8 Invader in the bridge. It has one volume knob. The tuners are the vintage kluson style tuners. The body seems to be a one or two piece Alder. The neck is a beautiful "C shape" with a CBS 70's headstock. This is made on the "Deluxe series" platform. When the pickguard is removed, the body IS routed to the Standard SSH.

Bought mine used. It had some small scratching..Nothing bad enough o noice unil i got i home.

I play moderate rock. I play mostly to studio record and write music. I play through some small practice amps and systems. As an instrument, his IS one of the best i have owned. The sustain is somewhat lacking a times, but the tone easily makes up for any losses the guitar has in that department.

Beautiful finish. Polyurethane on the body and a satin finish on the neck.
The action was off when i purchased it used. It was quickly remedied by a good guitar tech. The bridge seems tight and good. The low E sring does however seem a little close to the edge of the guitar neck. The tech made notice of it, but noticed that the nut was perfect. This could be explained by the possibility of the bridge being slightly, not centered perfectly. This does not effect the playability and may have been done to give a little more zip code to the high E.

No tuning problems like some have stated. Great cut nut. Frets are a little rough but can be easily repaired.

This guitar will withstand live gigging and will last a long time.
Had a loose strap button..Changed the screw and it is tight.
Very dependable and nice. You could gig with this alone..but you would be an idiot to do this with any guitar.

warranty for life.

been playing for 10 years +.
I have owned Gibsons i have liked less.
It rivals my american guitars.
I will never not own one. I love the no frills attitude of this guitar. This is better than any standard strat and is better than the highway 1 series.
I wish it had more versatility with the tone.

its a bloody ausome guitar !!!!!! ive owned mine for 2 years now ! does the jog giggin or sat at home just jammin ! i love it ! here pritty hard tofind these days considering there discontinued im deffo goin to get the tom delonge gibson when i get my hands on the cash !!!! if u know a person who is selling !! u have the money BUY IT !

they were all done amazingly build to feel like a king !

yes the hardware will last

ive gigged with mine over 40 times !!!! ive fell of stage 3 times with it and only few chips on the back and abit of dintige on the headstock u can drive a lorrey over it !!!

i bought this guitar from a friend, he stopped playin the guitar and he sold me thesurf green and black version both for only 200,i cant complain, the fact that theres only one pick up is a downside but if you play punk/metalcore/hardcore/grindcore/alternative/poppunk/indie it should be a problem. the tuners could be challenging at first

it has a really good amount of tone. it sounds so good. it suits my music style great. it has a really full sound. check the tom delogne videos on youtube theres a bunch thats the best advice i can give you

the only thing bad i have to say about this guitar is what the **** is up with that damn pickup! it always feels like its gonna fallout i wouldnt go to crazy when playin this guitar live cus i feel like theres good chance the pickup will fly out like a bat out of hell and knock someone in the front row the **** out, but thats just the way it feels. its never actually came out it just gets really loose. its not hard to tighten teh screws but your gonna be tighting it like once a week if you like to have a good stage presence

i really wouldnt know anything about that, i never had a problem that i couldnt fix regarding the tom delonge strat

id give it a 9. id give it a ten if it werent for that whore of a pickup always getting loose. It really stands out in every shape and form. its a real head turner. theres not a lot of guitars that are surf green, one pick up, and a pearly pickguard. its awesome. Changing strings might be a challenge the first couple time due to the vintage tuners but it shouldnt be that big of a problem

Mine was on sale after Tom DeLonge switched to Gibsons-
I had been looking at it for a while, but the original price of around
$540 (IIRC) was too high. It came down to just under $400, and I happened to have the money to nab it.
It was a little shopworn, and had some slight cosmetic flaws on the fingerboard (a bit of a knot, and a small glop of the neck finish spilled on it)
I bought it as a project. The Invader Humbucker seemed to be incapable
of a clean sound, and I like clean sounds; also, I like neck pickup sounds and neck/middle sounds.
I also like the sound of Telecasters, but dislike the lack of comfort compared to a Strat- I'm spoiled.
So I bought this to convert it to a 3-pickup hardtail Strat.
I had read of someone doing it, and it has all the routing for a normal S-S-S or S-S-H pickguard. The Squier Tom DeLonges don't have that routing- they are solid underneath the pickguard.
To me, the Strat routing is a major feature, because that means
that many Strat pickguard assemblys will work in it. I have several other pickguard/pickup assemblies I could put in it, and probably will someday as experiments.

Mine is black, and came with a white pearl pickguard, and I like the look, so I got an S-S-S white pearloid pickguard from GFS (Guitar Fetish). I also got two of their Strat-shaped Tele pickups with
inductance plates underneath to mimic the inductance of the metal cover on the Tele neck pickup and the inductance from the bridge surrounding the bridge pickup. One is hot and I put it in the neck,
the other is hotter and in the bridge. For the middle I used a ceramic single coil that GFS had on closeout.

I put the Invader bridge pickup in another Strat, and coil tapped it.
I really like the sound of the Invader coil-tapped- it also sounds
like a Tele bridge pickup- a meaty clean sound.

Stock, it was terrible for my style, but if you want gnarly bridge pickup sounds I can see how the Duncan Invader would do it.

Modded, I really like it- a very different sound from a Strat, but in the same shaped package, and with the same pickup combinations.
The ceramic pickup in the middle interacts really well with the Tele-ish
pickups in the neck and bridge, and gives me a jangly quack in combo positions that puts
my regular Strat to shame. It actually sounds Rickbackerish sometimes.
All the pickup combinations are super useful sounds.
It's also louder than my regular Strat- some of this may be high output single coils, but some is the hardtail bridge.

Another odd bit of serendipity:
I had noticed that the strings seemed out of balance in
a way that was more than could be adjusted out by angling the pickup.
The bass strings were REALLY loud.
I was adjusting the height on one of the saddles, when the allen screw stripped out the threads for no reason.
I was bummed... but I had some vintage-style bridge saddles that
had had a similar problem, so I left the stock saddles on the treble strings, and put vintage saddles on the wound E, A, and D strings...
and it brought it right into balance, and sounds really good that way!

I brought the guitar to practice one night, and the praise team leader said "That guitar really has attitude!"

Like I said, there were some minor flaws on the fingerboard, but
nothing that affects the playability of the guitar. I'm not picky
about those kinds of things.
The action is good- it's my second most playable neck, after my Standard Strat.

Like I said, I stripped out one stock bridge saddle adjusting it, so they are not really high quality.

The tuners are a tad sloppy- I don't like to tune the guitar without
an electronic tuner, while with my Standard Strat I don't mind.
I don't know whether that's the type of tuner or just these particular ones.

The slotted tuners are also a little bit difficult to deal with if you use light gauge strings like I do, at least on the E and B strings-
I do a half hitch around the tuner on one side of the slot on those strings and it avoids them slipping out like they do if installed
normally (for the slotted tuners).

The tuning saddles seem iffy, but everything else is solid.

As it is now, yeah, I'd probably gig without a backup.

I've been playing guitar since I was 14 (and that's a long time ago),
but I only had a couple years experience with electric guitar in my teens (1965 or 1966 Fender Mustang).
I started playing electric guitar again about 9 years ago, and
use electrics for bluesy leads and contemporary worship music.
I can't think of a better way to get into a hardtail Strat.
I really like the look of the big headstock too.
I love the guitar- it's my Tele in disguise!
The only really similar guitar is the Robert Cray MIM Strat,
and I think those are more expensive. I'm not that big a fan of Robert Cray, and I'm not a Tom DeLonge fan at all, so I'm
glad I could take off the Tom DeLonge backplate!

70's head stock, vintage tuners, one invader, one volume and a Hardtail bridge!

I love this guitar! I'll admit I Like blink but I also know toms not the best guitar player alive! I run this direct to a marshall jcm 900 with a bbe sonic maximizer in the effects loop. I only wrote this review to make a couple points. first off disregard the poeple who are more interested in making fun of punk then of writing about the guitar.
second these are made in Mexico where not all guitars are crated equal. And all of them are now being bought on the used market now! take that into consideration.

Ok i love the hardtail brigde. They sound better! And I love the way the pickup sounds! I've never found the clean channel muddy but I have a nice amp and a sonic maximizer. this isn't really a jazz or blues guitar but it dose sound great. I also have a highway one! and you can get more sounds from it! but you can't get the power that this guitar has!

it was good. not much to say here it's chipped and skratched now but I've used it alot! I will agree however with the people that hate this guitar that the ******* pickup always wants to fall out. Don't know why but it sucks!

I play live alot with it without a backup! i have strap locks so that no problem I put tape on the pickup screws as a temp fix to keep it from failing down. the finish is as good or better then anything else! I've never had it fail me!

it was used when I got it!

I've been playing for 5 years or there a bouts i play classical punk acoustic. I would find another if it was lost. I love the sound and the hardtail brigde. I'll admit that a neck pickup would be nice sometimes but i still can make a lot of tones with this guitar! the only thing I hate id the pickup failing out! i think overall the thing that i like the most besides the sound is that it looks ******* awesome! large headstock great colors yellowed finish and it's a strat!

Only one volume knob and not tone... FINE WITH ME :D This guitar is amazing. Made in mexico this baby comes with the most badass Humbucker the Seymour Duncan Invader. It has a beautiful gloss neck with a rosewood fingerboard and the neck is VERY thin and just amazing. Comes with Sperzel locking tuners so this thing never goes out of tune. I friggen love this guitar.

Absolutely perfect. Blink 182 is my favorite band and i play a mix of punk and metal and this guitar suits my style PERFECTLY. Im running it through a Vox Speaker Cabinate with a Fender M-80 head and it just sounds great. The distortion is extremely crunchy and rough which i love. The cleans i find give a nice bright sound. This guitar is perfect for me.

I bought this guitar used. The pickup was very loose and there were a few chips and scratches but with a couple hours of work it was good as new :D

This guitar is very well made. I would defiantly use it for live shows without a backup. I have full confidence in it.

Ive never had i problem so i couldnt tell you.

I have been playing for a couple of years. I own an Epi SG-400, a Epi DOT studio and a squire Deryk Whibley Telecaster and this is EASILY My favorite of all my guitars. If it were stolen i would be heartbroken and for sure try to track down another one. I love the neck, the sound of the distortion and basically everything about it. It just gives me that great crunch that most other guitars just don't give. I could maybe ask for some tone control but the positives WELL outway that fact.
This is my Favorite guitar. I love it. Shame it is discontinued. Glad i got mine when i did!!! :D:D

features? theres not many but what the guitar does have makes up for what it doesnt have! one seymour duncan invader (coolest humbucker ever!) one volume knob (no plastic shit on this monster)a hard tail bridge (thank god is doesnt go out of tune everytime i bump the tremlo)21 frets is fine for me (i dont think ive ever gone past 20) and i love the tuning pegs it never just falls out of tune!

this guitar does an ace job! ive played all types of music from punk to metal and this gutiar smashes it! i run it through a mesa boogie dual rectifier and a marshall DSL 100 into 2 2x12mesa cabs and i get this amazing dirty rough yet crispy distortion and bright clean sounds! i like this guitar so much that when it went out of production i bought two more fender deluxe strats and converted them to delonges setup for live playing!

a little bit of rooting around becasue i use heavier strings than what the guitar is set up for

before i had the tom delonge strat i never used strats becasue i dont like single coil pickups! i love the strat look and feel and with a humbucker its all my dreams come true! i have a gibson SG and 2 les pauls that rarely come out now i have 3 TD strats ive had my first one since 2002 and i used it the other night just doesnt seem to die! the volume pot is gonna need to be canged soon though! they all have scrathes and chips all over them but if use your guitars live all the time its gonna happen regardless what you play! this guitar is !!!BULLETPROOF!!!

like i said i have 3 of these monsters and i wouldnt be without them!
its sad that fender discontinued this amazing guitar! they are missing out! tom delonge switched to a gibson ES 335 hollowbody with the same setup as his strat so i would love to try that out other then that i just love this guitar fender should make more!

Satin finish
Strat body
Hardtail bridge
Vintage style fender tuners
21 fret thin neck with rosewood fretboard
made in 1992 in Mexico
One volume knob.
One passive seymour duncan invader humbucker
Alder body

This guitar is amazing, it's probably going to stay my number one for a while. I play a lot of rock, punk, and a little metal, mainly harder stuff, but with plenty of cleans thrown in here and there. This guitar is great for me. I like it because it's so simply, and makes it very simply. It is not a noisy guitar at all, because it is properly shielded, and only has one humbucker, so you don't get any 60 cycle hum. Very rich, yet still bright sound. On cleans, it can get real snappy or nice and smooth, depending on how you set the amp. I prefer to set most of my tones by way of the amp, leaving the tone on my other guitars all the way open. This guitar eliminates that need. When distorted, this thing is a beast, but it's very articulate distortion, not cheesy or muddy. Don't get me wrong, you can muddy it up if you want, but it reflects whatever settings you set. It's very loud, and very clear, and very easy to use.

I bought this baby used from a Guitar Center. Before I bought it, the in-store tech replaced the volume pot with a better one. It was shielded inside, and it has vintage style tuners with work perfectly, and hold tune fairly well, as far as I can tell. The frets have very slight wear, which is unsurprising seeing as this is one of the first models that came out. The neck is very nice, in fact probably my favorite I've played, and one of the major selling points. It is very slightly thinner than a regular fender neck, which is perfect for me. The headstock looked great, bridge is fine, tuning is a breeze, and overall everything is great aside from VERY VERY minor wear, mostly on a few frets, and one tiny like scratch on the paint near the neck joint which cannot be seen from any angle other than the player. The guitar is also a "so-ridiculous-it's-awesome" Daphne Blue, which pearloid pickguard. The nut also seems to be better quality than most. It's an Alder body, and Seymour Duncan Invader pickup. I'll give it a 9 for it's current condition, but brand new it'd be a 10.

It seems to be a very sturdy guitar, alder body, locked strap when I picked it up. the hardwear seems fine, and this guitar has already been around for about 14 years. The finish is cool, and seems very strong, because I haven't noticed any wear whatsoever. I will be using it at gigs without a backup, as well as recording an album.

I haven't needed any support yet, the worst that happened was the new pot got really scratchy, but my local store cleaned it out for free (I love those guys). I preferred to fix it locally, because the Guitar Center I bought it at is an hour away, though they do have a 30day money back guaruntee and warranty, so they would've replaced the pot free of charge. I dont' think there's any other warranty as it's 14 years old, but I think fender would be cool anyway. I've dealt with them before, and they're nice and helpful.

I've been playing for a little over 3 years I think, and playing live almost every week during the schoolyear at my youth group. So far, so good. I love that the guitar matches my personal preferences so perfectly. Slightly thinner neck, high output pickup, vintage looks. If it was stolen, I would probably by an Invader and put it in my other favorite guitar, just because I cannot afford to buy another. I played tons of guitars, and this is probably my favorite guitar ever, including SGs, LP's, and other Fenders. This guitar has that "click" that people find when they play a guitar that suits them perfectly. It's not that there's anything physically different between this guitar and a million others, it's that personal thing that makes you really love the guitar.

Well I don't know much about the technical bits of the guitar and neither about the woods used for it.
As I said before I got it in 2002 it's a Stratocaster so the the body is obviously a Stratstyle body. It has a hardtail brige with the strings going through the body. It's plain Daphne Blue so you don't see the wood and it's made in Mexico. I never actually counted the frets...... It only has one humbucker and a volume knob, the pick up is a Seymour Duncan Invader wich is loud hehe.

Some people will label it as a one trick pony because you only have one humbucker and a volume control, but you could use this guitar as a back up in your more modern style rock band and as main guitar for the punk rock stuff ofcourse.
My style of music is pop rock and punk rock, so the guitar does the job just fine for me. I had an Epiphone Les Paul when I got this guitar and it made me alot happier, so I got rid of that heavy chunk of wood called Les Paul. (no offence)
I play it through a Marshall 30 watt mainly on overdrive because that goes best with the style of music I play. It does sound nice on clean when you back the guitar volume off a bit.
I have a Boss Chorus and a Line 6 Rotomachine to add a bit of flavour to my sound, and I also have a Boss Distortion pedal wich I use when I play on my other amp.
Sure it's a noisy guitar, but that's what it's about when you play punk rock. It sounds nice and warm both on OD and clean and it's loud.....
I like the guitar alot and I will never sell it. Hehe they will have pry this guitar from my cold dead hands. The only dislike about it is that I sometimes get a bit bored with the pickup variety, or should I say the lack of it.

I took the guitar straight of the wall and it played really nice. Sure I've done a bit of tweaking over the years and I play 0.10 strings so yeah, I changed them too. I never had any problems with any bits falling off or anything like that.
The only things that needed some adjustments were the output jack and the strapbuttons because they were coming loose.
I also fiddled around with the pickup height to see how the sound would change.

It's a reliable guitar, it will do the gig on it's own. But a back up would come in handy when you break a string : P
The finish is still in good condition apart from the usual scratches. And it has some damage because of a a dodgy strap of a gigbag.

I never had to get it fixed so I can't give mu opinion about how the company deals with warranty or problems. I don't know how long the waranty is or was on the guitar, but it's a Fender and I heard something about lifetime waranty so I don't know.

I've been playing guitar since 2000 and I've had alot of guitars but this is one of my real babies. I never want to get rid of it and I'd hate to see it broke or stolen. Mine is a Daphne Blue Mexican made from 2002, I think they only made it in Mexico apart from the ones Mr. DeLonge played himself. (he switched to Gibson a while ago and has his own Signature model based on a ES333)
If it got stolen I'd try to get one again or maybe DeLonge's Gibson if I find the pot of gold at the bottom of the rainbow.
My other guitars are Sqiuer Stratocaster (my first) Ibanez Artcore (ES model, just an extra guitar for when I get bored) Gibson SG Classic (P90's)
I never asked anything about the guitat before I bought it, I it and took it home hehe. I just love the look of Strats and they play nice.

Made in '01, Mexican made Strat. Model that my local shop just had sitting in the back room, picked it up back in '03. Alder bodied guitar, thicker then a normal Fender Strat. One volume control, and one Seymour Duncan Invader pickup in the bridge. Standard finish in Surf Green color. Normal Fender hardtail bridge. Neck is pretty chunky,but the normal Fender size. The shop I bought this from threw in a free gig bag.

Overall, feature wise, this guitar is a great deal for $500. It could definitly have more, and the finish on mine is flawed where the neck bolts to the body, but that's no big deal since you can't really see it and it doesn't effect anything.

This guitar suited my playing style perfect for the time I was using it, I was playing Blink 182 and lots of Pop-punk and punk. As expected, really good soung out of it. Ran out of a Marshall "Plexi", this thing really ripped and was great for punk/hardcore/emo/screamo. It's nice and quiet, no noticable hum from the pickup except the tiny tiny bit that's always expected. It seems to have a thicker sound then my Standard Strat, which is most likely no doubt because of the slightly thicker body. One bad thing is, it's not very versatile. With the one bridge pickup and one volume nob, you don't get much versaitily out of the guitar itself.

Overall, the sound is great, I really love how thick it is compared to standard sized Strats. It lacks in Versatility as mentioned, and this has really come to be a bad thing for me now.

I got this guitar, and it wasn't set up well, but that's what I expected since it'd just been sitting in the back of the shop for two years, but once set up, no fretbuzz or anything. The pickup height was perfectt (oddly). Only thing wrong with the finish was the flaws where the neck is bolted to the body.

I'd definitly gig this guitar, and probably without backup even though I always use backup anyway. Backup wouldn't be needed. The hardware is great, and I don't see any real reason to change anything. The finish is also great, and can take a beating, since I've only carried this in a gig bag for about 3 years and it's playing perfect. The strap buttons are fine, but I always use straplocks when gigging just to be on the safe side.

Never dealt with them.

I've been playing for 4 and a half years now, so this was my first mid-level guitar. I would buy this guitar no matter what because of how big of a Blink fan I am. I think the best feature of this guitar is the extra thickness of the body compared to Standard Strats you can buy today. If this was stolen, I'd probably hunt down the person who took it and beat the hell out of them just because of how much I love this guitar. It plays great, sounds great, and is lightweight. The only really big problem is the single pickup in the bridge, which doesn't give alot of variety. This guitar is definitly worth the $500 or so that I bought it for.