Van Bonta's Guitar Collection: My VH Shark

One of the strangest guitars in Rock and Roll history is Van Halen's "Shark" guitar, featured on the covers of their third album "Women and Children First". This guitar was once an Ibanez Destroyer (Gibson Explorer style guitar) that Eddie hacked up into a strange shape, painted, and customized to either look like a shark; or to look like a shark took a bite out of it. This guitar was used for tracks on VH1 that didn't require a tremolo bar, like "Running with the Devil", "You Really Got Me", "Jamie's Cryin", and "On Fire".

I started with a Hamer Slammer (explorer style guitar) that I found on Ebay for $150.00.

After removing the paint, I marked the body for special cuts.

I drilled 15 holes along the long side of the cut, and 7 holes along the short side. I used a 1/2" drill bit, but realized after the fact that I should have used a 3/8" to create a thicker "tooth". Then I cut straight through the center of the holes, creating "teeth". Unfortunately, this wood was a bit porous and the cuts opened up some of those pores - I used wood filler to close them up.

Primed

For the silver base coat, I used "metallic aluminum". I lightly sanded the base coat, and covered it with Minwax Polycrylic semi-gloss to put a barrier between the "metallic" paint and the gloss red that was going over it. The Minwax is a high quality acrylic that won't pop or crack gloss finishes like cheaper acrylic paints. I use the expensive acrylic only as a barrier between the cheaper acrylics to save money.

Next came the masking...

I really enjoyed masking the stripes on this guitar. It was a bit more artistic than the stripes on the previous guitars that I've replicated.

I sprayed another coat of the Minwax Polycrylic to seal the edges of the tape, and then sprayed the red.

I discovered that there are very few, if any, options for a cherry or apple red in a flat color. So, since I had to use gloss and couldn't really sand the red color into the silver stripes, the Minwax Polycrylic saved the day again. I put several coats, sanding lightly between, to create a stable barrier before I went back to the inexpensive full gloss.

After about 20 wet-sanded coats of gloss I added the turnbuckles...

Note: Having trouble locating the correct size turnbuckles for your Shark?? I already have them for sale on my website! Check it out HERE!

And then I painted the headstock and neck using the same process

During reassembly, I wired both humbuckers EVH style, eliminating the middle pot. I replaced the original pickups with VEH pickups from Guitarfetish.com. I also mismatched 2 sets of tuning machines to get the chrome/gold mix.

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!

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