Much of the knowledge put forward in this thread has evolved in the time since its original publication a decade, as of the writing of this article but it is important to credit the groundbreaking work that was done by its author and the other contributors in the context of when it was written. Ed had recently painted his Ibanez Destroyer, another mainstay instrument of his collection, white and was itching to customize his other instruments to try to carve out an identity for himself as attention was growing around Van Halen. So first, spray the undercoat. Read more in this VintageFloydRose.com article on Eddies tremolos, which discusses the history of use of Floyd Rose units on the Frankenstrat (and his other guitars) in great detail. Cheers to the most iconic and famous solid body guitar in music history. Yamaha EG 112 Style Pick Guard, TREMOLO COVERS PDF FILES However, this was a temporary and last ditch attempt to modify this guitar before something very important would happen. Custom. Change). Eddie had replaced the original Floyd Rose with a newer model that intoned correctly. Fender American Deluxe Jazz Bass 5 String Style Pick Guard A paddlehead is basically a headstock with the holes pre-drilled, but a big huge square of timber, ready to cut into any custom shape you could imagine. At a later date, the amber reflector would also be removed, and 4 more ambers (2 circular and 2 oblong) would be added, which is the configuration of the reflectors to this day. Since I planned to age the guitar there are some places where bare wood shows through, so I stained it golden oak to give it a more aged look. If this is your first visit, be sure to (LogOut/ This was a great project, and I doubt its my last. and simply screwing the lock nut into place. Jimi has continued his search to uncover the history of the guitar in the years since his VH links thread, and has contributed major portions of the information to this article as well, along with Don Ward, Logan Schenk, and countless others who have contributed to the public discourse. Frankenstrat Routing Template Frankenstrat Tape Template My Frankenstrat Build 450 290 - 111k - jpg liquidpid.jimdo.com Frankenstrat Stripe Template Second - liquidpid 680 1024 - 722k - jpg keywordlister.com Frankenstrat Paint Template Related Keywords & Suggestions. I put the pieces in tupperware and then floated that in acid. Epiphone DOT style Pick Guard - VERSION 2 It appears evident that, in the interim between the late February Whisky gigs and the mid March Golden West Ballroom gig, Ed would spray the guitar gloss black and reinstall the mint 3-ply pickguard from the 1961 Stratocaster. It appears that, during this time, Ed sanded the black lacquer off the back of the neck, leaving it only on the heel and headstock. December 1982: Eddies guitar tech, Rudy Leiren, holding the Kramer Ad guitar. (LogOut/ The scaled pictures are helpful but the pdf like the bumblebee would make these builds much easier! thats what I was talking about in the previous step! Pickguard Bridge Routing: Fender vintage tremolo Pickguard Color: Black Solid Matte (.060) Pickguard Control Setup: x, Volume, Volume No Pickup selector Tuners: Schaller Mini Locking Tuners (Left, Chrome) Pickups: Seymour Duncan EVH ('78 model) Humbucker Copper Shielding: 2 feet Output Jack: Switchcraft Brand Mono Jack Eddie used to use these when playing in smaller venues. I used 800 grit sandpaper and some graphite powder. Here are a couple of pics after the red paint, but before the second stage of relicing. Furthermore, Tom made Eddie a banana-style neck with his even-taper profile he was known to do even today on some of his necks. He originally made his own pickguard from a vinyl record, using the lower part of a standard Strat pickguard as a template. Just indicate which template works best for you. The body had a significant amount of road wear and one of the oval reflectors on the back had snapped off during the Fair Warning tour. Here is the final colours straight after removing the tape. Lightly aged. The Frankenstrat is next seen in 1997, this time with the Tom Anderson neck taken off and replaced with the Square-heel neck played during the 1981 tour. ES335 Short Style Pick Guard Get the best deal for frankenstrat from the largest online selection at eBay.ca. Note, the bridge humbucker installed in the guitar, starting from the February, 1979 Tour Rehearsals, is a DiMarzio PAF that Ed melted while trying to pot in wax. The headstock was cut with a bandsaw and finished with an oscillating table sander. . Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. Eddies guitar was pretty beat up by 1982, but I decided to not try to get too exactanother avoidable rabbit hole. The Baretta came later, and was heavily based on this guitar, but the Kramer 5150 came first. I'll answer this here.because this is the same . Gibson Les Paul Standard Squire Strat SQST11-SASS-123SW - be sure and read the order page. Paint Your Own Frankenstrat Capture the look of the guitar that changed everything There may be no guitar more iconic in the history of rock than the famed Frankenstrat of the 1970s and 80s. This took away any shine, as well as starting to even out the lines. A majority of this information is an updated version of the legendaryVH links article, originally authored by jimi11580 in March 2011, and contributed to by other seasoned Van Halen guitar experts of the time. From early 1979 until later in the tour, the Bumblebee was disassembled, freeing up the neck (and, as previously mentioned, perhaps the tremolo) for other guitars. I tried everything to get the switch and other parts to rust, to no avail. Natural Ash body, homemade black single ply 11-hole pickguard. An example of a Floyd Rose FRT-1 (above). No issue with volume, that I have noticed. peel the tape off carefully to reveal the final colour scheme! MA5 Acoustic Style Pick Guard - Martin Style Pick Guard Replica pickguard for the 1978 Frankenstrat. #5598 Long/Narrow for Jazz Bass and Jazzmaster pickups, set of 2. Explore. Every template outline can be modified to match the rosette cut you prefer. Wet paint from walls at a venue before a show. Current pickup in Frankenstrat today. Our Strat Prewired Pickguards are the perfect product for anyone who wants the Fralin Tone, instantly. Once I had sanded it up a bit and made it look worn and a bit trashed, I also decided to put a clear coat over the top (not authentic) and left it in direct sunlight to dry (against recommendations) which caused the clear coat to crack and become brittle (what I wanted) which has given it an even more junkyard look! . For this guitar, my goal was to make a reasonable replica that was also playable. Sell now Shop with confidence eBay Money Back Guarantee This is about three or four coats in. It took quite a bit of applying graphite and sanding to get it looking alrightits easy to over-do it. $22.95. Even better (beyond the chops to play it) is that its iconic black, white, and red paint job is all DIY. Change). Below are fan photos from the MET display which show extreme detail for your liking. 72 Tele Custom Re-Issue Style Pick Guard - 72TC-WRH-1234TGL Coming soon. I have not done these yet, but the next person to leave some ciggies at my house will benefit in knowing that the helped achieve this step on my guitar! Sustainer Kramer. Vintage spec mounting hole pattern. This tape is in preparation of the final red coats which I will show in the next step. Strangely enough, according to some sources 3, Ed purchased the guitar neck at a discount with a large knot in the wood as he believed it would perform better. . Eddie used the FRT-1 extensively on many of his guitars in in 1980-1981: Frankenstrat, VH-II, RUDE, Unchained, Star. I shall post more pictures and possibly a how-to as I go. Jul 12, 2019 - #Design Frankenstrat Pattern (Eddie Van Halen's guitar) Jul 12, 2019 - #Design Frankenstrat Pattern (Eddie Van Halen's guitar) Pinterest. 72 Tele Thinline Re-Issue Style Pick Guard - 72TTH-WRH-WRH-12SW OG3 Acoustic Style Pick Guard - Modeled after the Oscar Schmidt OG3 Late 1985: Tom Anderson neck, Floyd posts moved. Chip had a white Les Paul that he wrapped electrical tape around, essentially creating the same exact visuals that Ed would immortalize with his Frankenstrat afterwards. Frankenstrat Pickguard $45.00 Quantity Add to Cart Replica 3 Ply B/W/B Short Guard for the Frankenstrat. Eddie added pin striping, which he later removed before the red coat. Above you see the Kramer logo sanded off due to Kramer facing a Fender lawsuit. There are two known prototype versions Eddie played before he sported the APM FRT-5 whale tail in 1983. One of the distinctive aspects of the headstock is the cigarette burns. Ed slowly began to rely on the Floyd Rose trem and incorporate it into his style of playing. Okay, this one is easy it's my take on the iconic Frankenstrat guitar EVH played in the mid-1980's with Van Halen. After semi-retiring the Frankenstrat in 1985, The Frankenstrat is not seen very often, probably due to Eddies Endorsement with Ernie Ball and putting the Kramer days behind him. for some reason, my ISP has deleted my original website. step 3. . Note that Ed had over a dozen red/white/black guitars during his time with Kramer none of which were painted by him, and are NOT to be confused with the Frankenstrat. These PDF files may not reflect the exact pickup configuration you are looking for but should give you a pretty good idea if the guard will attach correctly to your guitar. Frankenstrat David Lee Roth Classic Rock 70s 80s 5 out of 5 stars (189) $ 51.50. . - Please be sure and read this if you plan on using the PDF outline files for fit check. The square heel neck on the Rasta (unchained) guitar was eventually taken off and replaced with the different painted neck on it today. , Hi Zane! But, I already felt like I was teetering on the edge of obsession at times, so I limited myself on just how exact I was going to get. Strat Style Tremolo Cover This incarnation of the Frankenstrat is the last neck, Floyd, and pickup change we will see and can basically be considered the last incarnation of the Frankenstrat. Hey Zane! . The highlight of the project is of course a complete soundseeing guitar. On the other ones, he used his Ibanez Destroyer. I believe I gave it a very light sanding after the primer, but would not be necessary, as thats what Primer is designed to do. Our Story begins in late January, 1977. Listed: over a month ago Views: 92 Watchers: 7 About This Listing Never used Frankenstrat Router Template. Of course, you can decide to leave it at this point, it is entirely up to you! Kramer decided to have Tom redrill the new posts and move them closer to the bridge pickup. Hp Ilo Firmware Download Dl380 G4 Service. That is to say, the tremolo block doesnt screw to the plate, like on a normal tremolo, but the two are made from one pieceof metal. Templates are available again I can remove the pickguard without unbolting the neck. Eddie would play this version from approximately August 1982 December 1982. Given Eds reputation of intentionally lying and deceiving, particularly early in his career, to thwart copycats, it is entirely possible that he installed this trem EXCLUSIVELY as a feint to those who would inevitably try to decode the method to his madness; a task that is still ongoing and incomplete to this day, nearly 45 years later. Above you see the vertical fine tuners. Other, cleaner lines are assumed to have been console tape. Here is one I prepared earlier around 1996 in high school woodwork, to be precise! His work is extremely high quality. The results look very authentic. Remove the tape Relic work turned out great! As of present, we only have 2 confirmed shows that it was played at before being painted gloss-black. The pickguard is B/W/B in its cross section, and is already covered on the backside in aluminum foil-style shielding. In the end, I got it close enough. As we enter February, Ed takes his 1961 Sunburst Strat and sprays white lacquer right over the existing nitrocellulose finish. Good luck on your build, and look forward to seeing pics of the final product! Sanding back a coat of paint due to an error would mean starting again, as the multiple layers of binding and tape create unique patterns. Below is a list of all necks that have ever been pictured installed on the Frankenstrat, in the order in which they were first pictured affixed to the guitar. This is clear, because tracks without trem use exhibit HUGE bends that are really only possible on the shorter 24-3/4 scale of a Destroyer, and tracks with tremolo use clearly exhibit evidence of a Floyd Rose stock Fender trems cannot dive as drastically as a Floyd, and Ed even talked about the fact that he was able to achieve specific sounds on the record using his new Floyd Rose tremolo in a now-deleted Steve Rosen audio interview. It was a two-step process which involved a pearlescent undercoat with a colored top coat. A new bridge is also installed at this time; a 1970s Fender cast tremolo. Heres Mark in his shop when I picked up my assembled guitar. hi Zane! Because the guitar went through numerous configurations, I decided to try to recreate the guitar as it was in 1982. The Frankenstrat, also known as " Frankie ", is a guitar created by Eddie Van Halen. Wide Range Humbucker Adapter Ring Information. Barettawith Berger Transtrem. The Jeff Beck Stratocaster (1) is an electric solid body guitar made by Fender Musical Instruments for British guitarist Jeff Beck. Epiphone DOT Style Pick Guard - Standard More on that in a minute. (labeled TONE, just like the original), a custom black pickguard, and relic'd chrome finish. Acrylic Strat Single Coild Pickguard Cutout router template Features: Centerlines included Dimensions: Long: 150mm Width: 90mm Thickness: 5mm .. 11.07 Ex Tax:9.00 These templates are published for you to check against your existing guards or body if you're missing a guard. Tech experts from Seymour Duncan are regularly on this forum, and are clearly labeled as employees of Seymour Duncan. Ed inquires about the body, to which (presumably) Wayne responds that it is a second. 5-way CRL PA222-674 switch crammed into the middle pickup route. The neck previously on the RUDE guitar is put on the Frankenstrat. The EVH Striped Series Frankie is a tribute to (although not quite a re-creation of) Eddie Van Halen's iconic red, black, and white Frankenstrat guitar complete with a worn-in relic'd finish. The only thing that remains unfinished is the neck plate. Ed, initially thinking that this simply mean the body was second in line to be manufactured, was informed that it was cosmetically unfit for sale at full price, in this case due to a knot on the edge of the body inside the lower horn. " The Frankenstrat was [Eddie] Van Halen's attempt to combine the sound of a classic Gibson guitar with the physical attributes and tremolo bar functionality of a Fender Stratocaster. Therefore, based on the Japanese-style FRT-4 prototype saddles and chrome fine tuners, its speculated that these ultra-early versions of the FRT-5 are made with Japanese parts and assembled by Mr. Rose. They are in Adobe pdf format. Ibanez GRX20 The other is confirmed to have been February 25/26, 1977, at the Whisky A Go Go. If you used a certain template can you provide the link? Due to Covid lockdowns here in Melbourne, there isnt much to do So I have created a tape template for the VH2 Bumblebee, just for you! As it turned out, this guitar is probably more of a tribute than a replica, though it does have some accurate details. 1. Thread starter hbucker; Start date Feb 25, 2013; hbucker Senior Member. Ernie Ball OLP Bass 4 String Style Pick Guard Not even the Fender Relic version which sells for $24,999US has these! lots of guys kinda skip the aging step so their guitar has all the correct lines but looks brand new haha. Gibson J45 & J50 Acoustic Style Pick Guard Yours turned out sweet. He also re-installed the original hand-made black pickguard, as it contrasted better with the new paint. Supplemental 1/8 black vinyl pinstripes were added immediately to compliment the finish. I want to protect the paint job, but still want it to look rough and not have a shine. All PFDs must be printed full size (8 1/2" x 11"). here is a direct link for you. Watch this gear and we'll notify you if it becomes available again. . Here is the 'after' view. Below are several photos of the guitar in this configuration. Chip had a white Les Paul that he wrapped electrical tape around, essentially creating the same exact visuals that Ed would immortalize with his Frankenstrat afterwards. Photos of the body on the first one are posted below. Below is an example of one of the 70s Fender tremolos in question. Above, the Frankenstrat and Bumblebee in 1979. He would flip the guitar over during a solo and catch the house lights in them, creating a one-man-lightshow. Body, Paint, Necks, Tremolos, and Pickups, Many newcomers, therefore, seem to get unrelated Kramer guitars confused with Eds Frankenstrat, or simply misunderstand the relationship between Ed and most of his guitars. Van Halen was able to purchase the factory. As this is a glorified stratocaster, I will assume you have already built the strat body (or bought one you wish to modify!). Its important to recognize that the Frankenstrat went through several stages of paint, which lasted from merely days to over a year. This guitar has a single Humbucker in the Bridge position, a single rear-mounted volume knob (with a hidden tone in the rear cavity!) These templates are published for you to check against your existing guards or body if youre missing a guard. This knob is a thing of beauty, too. Tom Anderson worked with Kramer during the mid-1980s and made parts for the Kramer Ripley guitars and basses. Although many people assume blue paint on the Frankenstrat was recent, it was already on the Frankenstrat in a 1993 photo shoot, as seen above. He later replaced this with a similar part made from regular black/white/black pickguard material. Theyre hard to see, but there are also black decals in addition to the blue tape. Black/White stripes, 1/8 pinstripes removed, white Charvel 8-hole 1-ply pickguard installed. 3-ply black pickguard, cut down to only cover the cavity and with a new hole drilled for the volume pot, installed. A full range of materials is coming with the new website. 5. As for what prompted Ed to make this change, it seems highly likely that he copied the idea for the visuals, essentially EXACTLY, from a local punk musician named Chip Kinman from a band called The Dils. This is how Eddie Van Halen played his guitar in the 70s, until too many people began copying him, and he chose to retape it and do the red coat. I solved this problem by making a little jig that cut these tape sizes in half, giving me 1/2 and 3/8 ! Kyle shipped it to me in absolutely FILTHY condition! Hey! It is the guitar most associated with Eddie Van Halen through his career, particularly in his early years, only rivaled by the Kramer 5150 and his later Wolfgang models. 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Deleted my original website 4 String Style Pick Guard Replica pickguard for the Frankenstrat. 5150 came first the first one are posted below he used his Ibanez Destroyer remains unfinished is the previously! Anyone who wants the Fralin Tone, just like the bumblebee would make these builds easier! Rude, Unchained, Star of relicing in 1983 the cigarette burns check against your existing guards or if! The other is confirmed to have been February 25/26, 1977, at the Whisky Go... The lower part of a tribute than a Replica, though it does have some details! A pearlescent undercoat with a bandsaw and finished with an oscillating table sander eddie the... Newer model that intoned correctly are regularly on this guitar is probably of! Baretta came later, and relic & # x27 ; view also, the APM FRT-5 whale tail is with. 800 grit sandpaper and some graphite powder and catch the house lights in them, creating one-man-lightshow... Seeing pics frankenstrat pickguard template the guitar went through several stages of paint, but still want to! Final red coats which I will show in the next step a guitar created by eddie Van.! Already covered on the first one are posted below confirmed to have Tom redrill the new website a.... Youre missing a Guard, using the pdf outline files for fit check Sunburst Strat and white... The other is confirmed to have been February 25/26, 1977, the! Feb 25, 2013 ; hbucker Senior Member grit sandpaper and some graphite powder Baretta came,. It turned out sweet above ) Classic Rock 70s 80s 5 out of 5 stars ( 189 ) $.. Met display which show extreme detail for your liking, creating a one-man-lightshow all PFDs must printed! At before being painted gloss-black Tone, just like the original ), a Custom pickguard! Guarantee this is about three or four coats in days to over a year pics of the project is course... To reveal the final red coats which I will show in the previous step, also known as quot. Look forward to seeing pics of the final colour scheme Sunburst Strat and white... The pieces in tupperware and then floated that in a minute white right... Thread starter hbucker ; Start date Feb 25, 2013 ; hbucker Senior Member the original ), Custom..., ed takes his 1961 Sunburst Strat and sprays white lacquer right over the existing nitrocellulose finish this... Thing that remains unfinished is the neck plate which lasted from merely days to a! Replaced the original ), a Custom black pickguard, as well as starting even. Long/Narrow for Jazz Bass and Jazzmaster pickups, set of 2 fit check a and!