The Dick Dale guitar.

[Artie]

In a thread in the pickup lounge, the subject of the Dick Dale Stratocaster came up. My curiosity got me to looking it up. It's funny how many sites, (including Fender themselves), totally missed the boat on describing his axe, with Fender making the Custom Shop recreation wrong.

Both Fender, and Premier Guitar say that he played a right-handed guitar, flipped over, but didn't restring it. Which would put the bass strings on the bottom. They then say that this would effectively reverse the angle on the bridge pup. But if you flip a RH guitar over, and don't restring it, you haven't changed the orientation of the bass and treble strings to the bridge.

Try it yourself. Flip your RH Strat over like a lefty. If you didn't restring it, you haven't changed the relative position of the strings to the bridge or bridge pickup. You've only changed the position of the strings to you.

What makes this even funnier, is that both the Fender blog, and the Premier Guitar article, start off with a picture of Dick Dale and his guitar. It's clearly a left-handed guitar that has been restrung. Now that does change the orientation of the bass & treble strings to the bridge and bridge pickup.

Finally, Fenders Custom Shop DD recreation is all wrong. They have only the headstock flipped over. This is not how DD's Stratocaster was.

I just think this is odd and funny.

On the Fender blog, look at the pic at the top, (and the video, for that matter), then scroll down to item #2.

Dick Dale Stratocaster

On the Premier Guitar article, again, look at the pic at the top, then scroll down to the first text in red.

And finally, here's what Fender CS did to it:

Fender DD Stratocaster

 

[Mincer]

Believe what we say, not what we do.

 

[Chistopher]

If I could help stir up the pot a little further, both Premier Guitar and Fender CS are right.

He had a left handed guitar strung right handed (with 16s!) played left handed.

 

[marcello252]

OT: I've always asked myself if a reverse headstock , with the lighter strings down, still needs the stringtrees , does anybody has one ?

 

[Chistopher]

OT: I've always asked myself if a reverse headstock , with the lighter strings down, still needs the stringtrees , does anybody has one ?

Depends how cool you want your guitar to look

 

[jeremy]

i have a reverse headstock strat, and esquire actually, strung normally and dont use strings trees on either

 

[GuitarStv]

While his playing is awesome, I never thought there was anything particularly secretive about Dick Dale's tone. If you play a strat aggressively with a pick and a deep sounding spring reverb, you will sound just like Dick Dale. Hell, I don't even think string gauge matters - I get a pretty passable sound with .11s.

 

[Driver Blues]

All of Dick Dale's sounds are available on a normal stratocaster.

Now the Misirlou picking pattern- that's a tough one to nail down

 

[Artie]

If I could help stir up the pot a little further, both Premier Guitar and Fender CS are right.

He had a left handed guitar strung right handed (with 16s!) played left handed.

But that's not what they say. Both Fender and PG say it's a right-handed guitar, flipped over. Fender even references Jimi Hendrix.

I realize this isn't earth shattering info. I just find it humorous that both of these "guitar-centric" sites got it wrong. Especially when they make that post that included a pic of a left-handed guitar.