I remember hearing my first Van Halen song on the radio - "Ain't talkin bout love", from Van Halen I. That song was made famous with this guitar, and this guitar was made famous the instant the album hit the music stores with that "red blurred" picture of Eddie holding it up. At the time, I'm sure only a few music producers had enough vision to realize that this iconic guitar, with its crazy paint job, would mark a turning point in rock history, and the expected sound of an electric guitar. Beginning with this guitar, Van Halen's music, album after album, bridged musical gaps between heavy metal, dance, and pop music. As well as inspiring countless generations of young people to save up their money to buy an electric guitar and to learn to play it like Eddie.
My replica of the VH1 Frankenstein cost me less than $200 in materials, including paint. Here's where I started. This was a strat style body I scoffed off a cheap strat style guitar that I picked up with a nice Fender amp for only $40!
I painted the black base coat...
...and masked it off for the black stripes. This masking job was a bit different than the 5150 guitar. The 3/4" tape is actually ONE LONG PIECE of tape that keeps wrapping around and around the guitar.
...and after painting the white coat and peeling the tape.
This is the neck that I found on Ebay for $35
There are plenty of replicas of this guitar out there. Some are better than mine, some not as good. However, there are only a few that also replicated the nasty guitar strap that went with it! Here's my version:
I set and peened each stud one at a time; about 4-5 hours of work for almost 100 studs.
2 feet of 5/16" twist-link chain and a couple of leash clips later...
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One of the next two pictures is the original, from a Japanese magazine article. The other is my replica, placed onto the same magazine article. Can you tell which is which?
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Ok, so if you haven't already figured it out, my replica is the first picture. When I took this picture, I had a Seymour Duncan Humbucker installed. Since then, I bought and installed an EVH Frankenstein pickup for it (Well worth the money!). This guitar also has a ground down Danelectro aluminum nut (awesome sustain), Wilkinson Schaller-style tuners, and a standard strat tremolo w/3 springs setup in "A" formation. After first assembling this guitar, the action was way high and the tremolo pivot screws had stripped the wood. Every time I would use the trem I would lose the tuning. I did some research on how Ed would keep the tuning after divebombing with the trem and I learned that he would mix graphite dust (from a pencil) with vaseline and place it in the nut. This would allow the strings to move around the nut without "catching". To fix my guitar, I shimmed under the neck w/ a piece of sandpaper, reamed out the trem pivot holes, filled with hardening wood filler, and re-drilled the pivot holes. I also tried the graphite/vaseline thing. Action is perfect now, and I can divebomb through 2-3 songs before I start to lose the tuning.
Note: I have a used white VEH pickup for sale on my website that is perfect for your replica.. Click HERE to check it out!
And here is a demonstration:
