The crusty S-500 is a lot better, but it's still crusty. The guitar is now playable and sounds good. Surprisingly the electronics work properly! I took a stiff bristle brush and cleaned a lot of the rust and crud off of the metal parts. Eventually, I want to replace the tremolo studs, pick-guard screws and pickup mounting screws. They are really rusty and its going to be a big chore to get a lot of them out. The locking tuners were junk. I got a set of regular non locking tuners from Darwin for the guitar. I switched the tuner buttons from the locking tuners to the replacement tuners so that the bright and shiny new tuners didn't look out of place. I decided that since the price tag has been there for nearly 15 years, that it should stay on the headstock. I don't normally name guitars, but I have named this one "The Tetanus Special".