Jackson Dinky RR Custom

Dan Spitz replica

This guitar is very unique. It's obviously a tribute to the famous TMNT graphic Dinky Rhoads played by Dan Spitz of Anthrax. But in addition to specs inspired by Dan it also features 24 frets, EMG preamp and only one sharkfin inlay placed at the 12th fret. There are also no bindings which gives the guitar a darker look.

What makes this guitar special to me is the way I got it. It seemed to take forever. The first time that I heard about it was from Robert Witte. He said there is a turtles graphics Rhoads in Hawaii but the store is hard to reach. I remember getting the phone number from Robert but since I couldn't find much info of the store online I decided to let it be. I also had no idea if the guitar was still there or what the specs were. A year later I started to talk about this guitar again - this time with Ian. He had earlier gotten more info about it and also seen some pics. Supposedly the guitar had many issues so I wasn't too excited. Later on I was lucky enough to get an original Dan Spitz Dinky Rhoads - his trans black RR2636. That gave me the idea to pursue the RR from Hawaii again - those two would make a great pair.


At that point I noticed that Dan's Guitars music store had finally put up a website. I was able to find pics of this guitar and after seeing how good the graphic was and that the guitar had a tunamatic bridge I became very interested. 24 frets on an oil neck Rhoads is not a bad thing either for a Finnish guitarist. :) But I still had my doubts about dealing to Hawaii especially since I've had no luck with emails. That's when John Magee got into the picture. I had helped John get a cool Firebird from Finland and he was willing to be the middleman here. John called Dan's Guitars store and slowly we got more info and finally some closeup pics. Every step in getting the deal to go forward seemed to take forever. The time difference played a big factor and for most times there seemed to be noone working at the shop?! Anyway John was really patient and got all the info I needed. When the payment was finally done it again took forever to hear back from Dan. Finally weeks later I heard that John had gotten the guitar and he sent me some pics. It was so great to realize that the rhoads was in great condition and came with OHSC, hang tag and warranty card. Only thing missing were the strap buttons. John shipped the guitar to me and two weeks later on 9-24-2005 I received it. Over 2 years had gone from the time I first heard the legend of a turtles Rhoads in Hawaii and now it was here. :)

Below are some more pics of the guitar. The only inlay has been very carefully selected - it's like a beautiful rainbow. I was never really happy with the sound of this guitar until I made two little changes. I replaced the bridge with an old RR TOM and adjusted the pickup further away from the strings. Suddenly the guitar came to life. Believe it or not changing the bridge made the guitar sound a lot warmer. It was overly bright and thin with the regular Gotoh tunamatic. Now the sound is well balanced and it rocks! This guitar is proof that sometimes it takes a lot of time and work to get things right but in the end it's worth it.


Huge thanks to John and Ian!