For about 30 seconds I thought about buying a $2000 EVH Ernie Ball Music Man and painting it. After coming to my senses I found this kit guitar on ebay. Basswood with a maple top, just like the real EBMM. The headstock was not correct... it was sort of a hybrid EBMM/Wolfgang headstock with the correct EBMM shape, but the 3/3 machine setup was like a Wolfgang.
I filled the 3 incorrect holes with dowel and plastic wood, and redrilled holes in the correct EBMM locations
Painting the headstock
Adding the decal
Painting the body
Painting the black stripes
After 20 coats of clear gloss, wet sanding, and buffing
Assembly
For a kit guitar, this one certainly sounds great! That magical tone from the combination of the basswood and the maple top really comes through. And the pickups aren't bad either. They aren't quite as hot as the real EBMM/Wolfgang pickups, so I may replace them at some point.
One of the biggest hits of Van Halen's 1984 album was the song "Hot For Teacher". And the MTV music video for it was just as popular. Although Ed used a classic Gibson Flying V when recording this song, this Kramer was the one he selected to use for the music video, and has since been named by fans as the "Hot for Teacher Kramer"
This guitar started as a white 1985 Kramer Baretta that I found on Ebay:
These pictures show disassembly and masking off the white (after sanding and repainting white, of course)
Creating a "tape stripe"
Outlined area for black stripes & removed "tape stripes"
All covered all except for black stripe areas
This is the first replica that I have used a professional wet sanding technique. I wet sanded up to 2000 grit, and then used 3M Rubbing compound to bring back the shine. Then added a Kramer logo decal to the headstock.
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
