A Look at the Washburn Dime Stealth
The Washburn Dime Stealth is one of those guitars that looks way more expensive than it actually is. You pick it up, see the skull inlays on the fretboard, the flame maple top, and the general Dimebag Darrell branding, and your brain immediately says "custom shop." It isn't. It's a budget instrument through and through, but that doesn't mean it can't do real work. The thing about this guitar that most people miss is the neck profile. It has a D-shaped neck with a flat 12-inch radius. That combination matters more than the pickups do if you're doing aggressive bending or heavy palm muting. The flat radius keeps the strings level across the fretboard, which is good for low action without fretting out. The D-profile is thick enough to feel substantial but thin enough that your hand doesn't cramp after a two-hour session. I've had one for about three years now, and the neck finish is starting to wear thin near the first position from sweat and movement. Nothing broken, just the usual patina you'd expect from a working guitar. The hardware is where the cost shows. It comes with a standard Floyd Rose-style tremolo, not an original Edge or FR Pro. It holds tune reasonably well if you install a quality set of strings and lube the knife edges with a bit of graphite from a pencil. I learned this the hard way after buying a used one that was completely out of adjustment. The trem was backed out so far the bridge was tilted backward, and the strings were riding loose on the saddle contacts. It took me about twenty minutes to reset the spring tension, file the nut slots with a proper nut file, and get it back in tune. After that, it stayed put for months of normal playing.
The pickups are ceramic humbuckers. Ceramic magnets give you higher output and a tighter low end, which is exactly what you want for modern metal. They also have a sharper attack on the high end, which some players find too harsh. I found that running the neck pickup through a compressor or a tube screamer type drive pedal smoothed things out nicely. The bridge pickup alone is aggressive enough for djent-style picking and tight chugging. You don't need an expensive amp to make this guitar sound right. A decent modeling amp or a simple drive pedal into a solid-state platform works fine. The pickups are designed to handle high gain without turning to mush. Here's a detail most people overlook: the body wood. The Stealth uses a mahogany body with a maple top. Mahogany is warm and resonant, which gives the guitar a natural low-end thump. The maple top adds some brightness and attack. Together they balance out the Ceramic pickups' tendency toward brightness. If you're coming from a guitar with a chambered or alder body, the tonal difference is noticeable. The mahogany gives it more weight and sustain, especially on the lower strings. This matters when you're playing downtuned because the strings go flabby and lose definition. The mahogany body helps keep them tight. The skull inlays themselves are made of a synthetic material, not actual bone or mother of pearl. They're durable, which is good because on a budget guitar you should expect some abuse. I've dropped this guitar twice. Once off a monitor wedge at a gig and once face down onto a concrete floor. The finish is chip-resistant enough that neither drop caused any real damage beyond a small scratch on the headstock. The inlays haven't popped out, which is something I've seen happen with cheaper fretboards after a few years of heavy playing.
If you're looking at this guitar as a starter metal axe, here's what you should know about setup. The factory setup is never great out of the box. You'll get fret buzz, intonation will be slightly off, and the action is usually higher than ideal for fast playing. A full setup costs about forty to sixty dollars at a shop, or you can do it yourself if you have the tools. Nut height, saddle height, truss rod adjustment, bridge angle, intonation screws. All of it takes maybe an hour if you know what you're doing. The guitar responds well to being set up properly. It's not a finicky instrument, but it does need the right setup to sing. One thing I want to mention because nobody talks about it: the tuning stability when you go below standard tuning. This guitar is designed for drop D and below, but if you're tuning to C standard or lower, you'll need a heavier gauge set of strings and possibly a nut replacement. The stock nut is plastic and the slots are cut for medium gauge strings. Drop to C and the strings rattle against the nut every time you play. I solved this by getting a graph Tech black tusq nut installed with the slots cut for .012-.056 strings. Cost me about thirty dollars and the difference is night and day. The guitar stays in tune even with heavy trem use at lower tunings now. The electronics are basic but functional. One volume, one tone, and a three-way toggle. No coil splits, no switching options. That's fine for this price point. Most metal players run everything open and use their pedalboard or amp to shape the tone. Adding more switching would just increase the chance of a dirty potentiometer failing after a few years. Simpler is better here. I did replace the stock pot with a CTS 500K for the tone because the original felt scratchy after about a year of use. Five dollars and a soldering iron fixed it.
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Build quality is inconsistent. Some Stealths come with perfectly smooth fretwork and level frets. Others have sharp fret ends that dig into your wrist during bends. I inspected my guitar under good lighting and ran a fingernail across the fret ends along the entire neck. Two spots had minor sharpness that I smoothed with a small file. About ten minutes of work. Check yours before you start using it seriously. Also look at the truss rod cover. On some units it's loose and falls off during transport. A tiny drop of super glue on the screw threads fixed that on mine. These are small things, but they add up when you're buying a budget instrument and expecting it to handle regular use. For someone looking to get into metal playing without spending a fortune, this guitar does the job. It's not going to compete with a high-end PRS or a Ibanez RG with a premium pickup set. But it's solid enough to learn on, durable enough to take to gigs, and looks good enough that nobody at the open mic night is going to ask why you bought a guitar with a cartoon skull on the fretboard. They'll just assume you like the aesthetic and move on. There are better options in the same price range if you're willing to look. The Jackson JS Series and the Ibanez GIO line have their own strengths. The Jackson has a thinner neck and a more modern feel. The Ibanez has better hardware options at certain price points. But if the skull inlays appeal to you and you want a guitar that doesn't require constant tweaking to stay playable, the Dime Stealth is a reasonable choice. Just budget a little extra for a proper setup when you get it home.
