My Unchained "See Ya" Guitar

In 1981, Van Halen's "Fair Warning" was released. This fourth album was much darker, and contained more complex guitar arrangements than previous albums. Many of the songs on this album, including the Van Halen Anthem song "Unchained", were recorded in "Drop D" tuning, in which the low E string on the guitar was tuned a step down to D. To play these songs on tour, Ed needed to keep a guitar tuned to "Drop D". That was this guitar...

I bought this kit guitar, unfinished, on Ebay for $170. BUYER BEWARE: The hardware on these kit guitars is garbage, and the fret edges need to be filed down because they press them in the neck before the wood is dry. The body is decent, however, and you can't beat the price for a Floyd Rose Body & Neck. The first thing I did was cut a hole for the face jack, and fill the hole for the side jack.

This guitar came with a light coat of clear sealer on it, so I went straight to the white paint; about 6 light coats, and then onto the taping. I used a cutting compass for the circles. Note: cut the circles on wax paper or something, not on the guitar itself. The "lady shape" and the "yin-yang" was cut directly on the guitar with an exacto.

After the tape, about 4 light coats of black.

I waited about 5 minutes after the last coat before I started peeling the tape, and I got little to zero bleed.

I built up to 20 or 30 coats of clear gloss, lightly wet sanding between coats, and then I did a deep wet sand to bring all the surfaces level. Then I clear glossed another dozen coats or so, lightly wet sanding in between again. I cut & pasted the "Bye See Ya Later" from the original image and had decals made (special thanks to D.S. for making the decals).

Note: These decals are for sale on my website - check them out HERE!

I discarded the garbage hardware that came with the kit guitar, and loaded it up with real hardware, including an original Floyd Rose with fine tuners, and a white Seymour Duncan '78 without the SD logo, that I purchased from "Busy Pete's Music" on Ebay. I actually already owned a strap that matched (or is at least very similar to) the one Ed used for this guitar.

(click on any picture to enlarge)

Lesson Learned: Don't buy kit guitars! In the end, this guitar came out very nice & plays very well, but only after a lot of fighting with it! I could have saved a lot of headaches if I bought the body & neck separate, and it would have only cost me another $50 or so.