My DragonSnake Replica

Not only is this "Snake/Dragon", or "DragonSnake" guitar one of the lesser known guitars that Eddie played, even this January 1981 issue of Guitar World magazine is so rare and coveted that when one pops up on Ebay, they usually sell between $50 and $75. Really.., for one magazine!

This guitar began it's life as a Charvel. The body was about the same as an Explorer, but it had a telecaster style control plate, and a Fender style tremolo. Shown in the picture below, it looks like Ed slapped a Danelectro neck on it (possibly the same neck he used on the Charvel Star).

J.F. Sterry, a friend of Ed's offered to make a custom piece of art out of this guitar for Ed. Here's a picture of the backside (sorry it's so blurry - it's the only one I could find). That writing in the bottom left corner is the artist's signature "J.F. Sterry"

My DragonSnake replica was 9 months in the making. These Charvel "Explorers" are so rare, I couldn't find one anywhere, and they are pretty different from a regular Explorer. But I was able to find the proper hardware, so I decided to make the body myself. I started with six maple boards that I picked up at Lowe's

I glued them, one joint at a time, to a 2 inch thickness

Special thanks to a CNC machinist friend, J.P., for designing me a template

I did all the routes by hand, with a regular router

And a bandsaw for cutting the rough shape

And the finer cuts

And then I started carving. Choosing to use hard maple to carve was probably not the smartest idea, but with a dremel tool, sandpaper, and some elbow grease I got the job done

Here's the final carving and the penciled outline of the blue snake

I taped off everything except for the blue snake

I painted a very light purple undercoat.. (it looks more pink in the picture)

And then covered that with a metallic blue

Here it is after peeling the tape.. you can't see the metallic flake in the picture, but it's there and it's very cool!

Next, I protected the blue with a couple coats of matte clear, and then taped over it...

...and sprayed the metallic gold coat

Here it is after peeling the tape

For the backside, I forgot to take a few pictures. I protected again with a couple more coats of matte clear, taped off everything except for the center and the underbelly of the blue snake, and sprayed a satin black

I protected again with matte clear, taped off the underbelly of the snake, and hand painted acrylic yellow

I hand painted the scales on the blue snake next. I used a medium grey acrylic paint. I started with oblong hexagons and wasn't really happy with how they were looking because they would stretch too much with the turns in the body. So I switched to equilateral hexagons and they started looking much better. At that point, I had painted so many scales, there was no way I was going to start over - so some scales in the center of the guitar are a little lame

Next I painted the snake head details

And then I painted the brown snake. By this time, I had gotten pretty good at painting scales, so these came out excellent!

My favorite part of the painting was the dragon - it's not an exact copy of the original, but I think it looks just as good, and it was all freehand!

And finished with the dragon claws and fins

I didn't want to replicate the original artists signature, so I put my own on this one!

I bought the proper Fender neck on Ebay for about $80, and sprayed satin black on the headstock and the back of the neck. I believe the original neck was the neck from the original VHII BumbleBee, before a Floyd Rose tremolo was installed on it

And after some wet sanding and gloss, and then assembly...

There are alot of Van Halen replica guitars out there, and quite a large number of people that enjoy this hobby. However, I am proud to say that, to the best of my knowledge, I am one of maybe only 4 hobbyists that has attempted to replicate this guitar. And to be honest - it really wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be, and it came out WAY better than I thought it would! Don't be afraid of it!

Here's a rare clip of Ed playing the Dragonsnake in '79

And here's a clip of my DragonSnake

My First Year Peavey EVH Wolfgang

On March 16, 1991, Wolfgang Van Halen was born to Edward and Valerie Van Halen. On the album For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, Ed named the instrumental "316" after his son...

...and in 1996, Ed began a collaboration with Hartley Peavey, and Peavey Electronics. The result of that collaboration was the Peavey EVH Wolfgang, named after Wolf.

In this picture, Ed is playing the original and top of the line model, first year quilt sunburst, Made in the USA. It features a solid basswood body with 5/8" inch maple cap arch top, body binding, two knobs, 3 way pickup toggle switch (in reverse wiring from a Les Paul), 2 Peavey/EVH designed humbucker pickups, oil finished bird's eye maple neck and fingerboard with dual graphite reinforcement rods, 10 degree tilt headstock, Schaller mini M6 tuners with pearloid colored buttons, and liscenced Floyd Rose tremolo with D-tuna.

On March 17, 1998, one day after Wolf's 7th Birthday, Van Halen released the album, Van Halen III, featuring vocalist Gary Cherone, formerly of the Boston band, Extreme. While the album was the least successful of all previous releases, it contained some of Ed's most advanced guitar work, and was recorded with the Peavey EVH Wolfgang, which Ed also played on the supporting concert tour.

The photos below are of my first year, Sunburst Quilt Top Peavey EVH Wolfgang:

Early Peavey Wolfgangs all had serial numbers that began with "91", a tribute to Wolf's year of birth, of course. The serial number on mine is 91002053. I'm assuming that means that my guitar was the 2053th Peavey Wolfgang produced, but I could be wrong about that...

Here's a nice shot of the oiled birdseye maple neck

As much of a collector's item as the guitar, is this Peavey EVH Wolfgang leather strap. They no longer make them, so they become rarer every year, and are rarer than the guitars.