Frankenstrat
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The Frankenstrat is the famous guitar used by Eddie Van Halen from the hard rock band Van Halen.
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[edit] Overview of the Frankenstrat
The Frankenstrat is an Ash Stratocaster body with a routing that Eddie made to fit in a Gibson PAF humbucking bridge pickup [1], with a single coil neck pickup. The neck pickup was simply for decoration and was never actually wired with the humbucker, due to Eddie's inability to wire the switch properly. It has a maple neck, silver hardware, and red, black, and white stripes. It is a six string guitar with Floyd Rose tremolo.
[edit] Building the Frankenstrat
[edit] Buying the Body and Neck
Eddie Van Halen bought the Frankenstrat's ash body and maple neck for a total of $130. Both of these parts were from a store called Boogie Bodies, which sold Charvel-made body and necks. The body of the guitar was a "second," called so because it was not cosmetically pleasing. In Van Halen's case, the body had a knot in the wood. He bought it for $50 anyway because he believed it would perform fine. The maple neck of the guitar cost him $80.
[edit] Step 1
Eddie got hold of a PAF (Patent Applied For) pickup from his Gibson ES-335. He had the idea to dip the pickup in paraffin wax to reduce microphonic feedback, a technique that has since been employed by major guitar manufacturers such as Gibson.
[edit] Step 2
Van Halen painted the guitar black and let it out to dry. After it was dry he put masking tape on it,painted over it in white. Years later, he put more tape on and painted the guitar red then when it was dry he removed the tape.
[edit] Step 3
After the body was dry, he attached the neck and attached the tuning keys to the headstock of the guitar.
[edit] Step 4
Van Halen got rid of both tone control potentiometers (pots) and wired up the pickups in a simple circuit, due largely to his limited knowledge of electrical circuitry. Van Halen famously used a knob reading 'tone' on the volume control spot. He then put the strings on the guitar and used a vinyl record he cut up to use as a pickguard to cover the controls. He also added a stock Fender tremolo system.
[edit] Future Upgrades
The Frankenstrat was so popular by 1979 that Edward was tired of people trying to copy his guitar. So his solution was to pull the vinyl pinstripes that he had added to the guitar and cover it with masking tape and spray red over it. This created the red, white, and black. The Frankenstrat has gone through many necks over the years. He also replaced the bridge back and forth between the '57 Fender tremolo to the original gold Floyd, and the current Floyd. The quarter came from a neck change that required him to place the Floyd in a new position. The bridge didn't want to sit on the body so the quarter was put in place to let the bridge sit flush to the body. The original PAF has long since been replaced.
[edit] Variants
[edit] Kramers
Before the Floyd Rose tremolo system was available, Van Halen was constantly looking for ways to keep his guitar in tune and still use the tremolo. Kramer had the answer with the ancient predecessor to the Floyd Rose tremolo system. Van Halen sat down with the Kramer executives and agreed to use Kramer guitars and so, the Kramer 5150 was built using the same striped pattern but it used the new tremolo. Many other Kramers were made including a Frankenstrat replica. All of them had the new tremolo.
[edit] Charvel Hybrid VH2 a.k.a. Bumblebee
Van Halen made another Frankenstrat, this time black and yellow. It is currently buried with Dimebag Darrell of Pantera, who had asked for a replica Frankenstrat before being shot in 2004.
[edit] The Ibanez Destroyer a.k.a. Shark
This was a dual humbucker guitar with a radical design made from an Ibanez Destroyer. Eddie cut a huge chunk of the wood out with a hacksaw, making it look different. It was used in the videos for "Runnin' With the Devil" and "You Really Got Me" and included a toggle switch. However, because Eddie removed the chunk of wood, he destroyed the sound of the guitar. He was really upset, and tried to get ahold of another one. But, Ibanez had already been sued for stealing Gibson's "Explorer" model, so Ibanez wasn't selling the Destroyer anymore. So ended the "The Shark".
[edit] Fender and Charvel
Charvel made a signature model EVH that sported one pickup, a Floyd Rose locking tremolo, a custom wound pickup, and could be ordered in black and white, black, white, and red, and black and yellow. The guitars are not reliced like the original Frankenstrat, but share a similar neck profile. Fender recently sold 300 replicas, scratches and all, for $25,000 and is the parent company to Eddie Van Halen's EVH brand. The Fenders are only the black, red, and white.
