Eddie Van Halen Frankenstrat Guitar History aka EVH "Frankenstein" | Guitars of the Gods

Eddie Van Halen's (EVH) Frankenstein guitar aka the Frankenstrat, has an interesting history with so many mods it's hard to keep track. Today we explore the origins of, and modifications to this legendary guitar. To support Secrets of Rock: www.buymeacoffee.com/secretso...
Here are even more details of Eddie's iconic Frankenstein Strat:
* Eddie used Fender XL150 strings
* String gauge was 9-40
* Eddie would boil the strings for 10-minutes before he put them on the guitar to help keep the guitar in tune
* The neck had no lacquer
* The fretboard radius is said to be the same as a Les Paul (12 inches)
* The distance from pickup to the strings is allegedly 1/8 of an inch
* The nut was oiled brass
* Eddie added a Gibson 500K volume pot
* Eddie used Fender medium picks .71mm
* Towards the end of the first Van Halen tour a neck with a rosewood fretboard was added
* The pickup was screwed/mounted to the body of the guitar in the cavity
* In the 90's Eddie worked with Floyd Rose to develop the D-Tuna which allows the guitar to change tuning from Drop-D to E
Chapters
0:00 - Intro
0:47 - Eddie the Guitar Builder
1:01 - Van Halen Origin Story
1:23 - Eddie Wants a Fender/Gibson Hybrid
1:49 - Boogie Bodies Guitars
2:20 - Frankenstrat's First Paint Job
2:39 - It's Alive!
3:08 - Original Frankenstrat Build Details
5:03 - But Wait, There's More!...Modifications That Is
5:21 - The Red Version
6:12 - The 1971 Quarter
6:31 - Pickups and Switching
7:05 - That White Pickguard...That Didn't Last
7:25 - The Frankenstrat Necks
8:10 - One Last Thing
Music in this video:
Aint Talking About Love - written by Van Halen, performed by Vitula String Quartet
Why Can't This Be Love - written by Van Halen, performed Zephyr Quartet
#vanhalen #eddievanhalen #evh #frankenstrat #frankenstein #guitarhistory #guitarsofthegods #guitarsofthestars

[@SecretsofRock]

What guitar history would you like to see next? www.buymeacoffee.com/secretsofrock

[@lazsupervision]

What about dean ween’s red strat?

[@franciscosierravega4200]

B.B KING Lucille!!!

[@spanish_coral]

Dimebag Darrell's Dean from Hell

[@MrMike-fm8bp]

Eric Clapton the fool SG

[@vanhalen2466]

Slash's Les Paul copy, BB kings Lucile, and Tom morellos arm the homeless guitar.

[@lengendaryleo3578]

EVH was one of the world’s greatest luthiers! RIP Eddie Van Halen

[@SecretsofRock]

He was a super innovative guy and invented other things that I didn't have time to get to in the video.

[@Pinstriped5120]

Eddie assembled guitars he was not a luthier. He claimed to "invent" pick up wax potting in a video interview which is bullshit George Beauchamp potted P/Us in the early 1940s while working for Rickenbaker, Bill Lawrence shortly after used the same technique. He was a great guitarist but he was no luthier. A luthier builds from scratch I could teach a monkey how to assemble a solid body guitar. I admire Eddie for many things but I don't like the fact that so many think he was some great innovator because he wasnt!

[@Ottophil]

@@Pinstriped5120 man, you’re a douche. I don’t even like eddie. But you’re harsh as hell bro. If it werent for him I wouldnt have a 6505 amp, i could care less about the music he made. Ed did get some game changing gear assembled. Regardless of his skill at building he was an engineer. Trust me

[@rooctherooc2418]

@@Ottophil just because someone used a good amp doesn’t make them an engineer

[@bobbybergdoll4377]

@@Pinstriped5120 that potting the pick ups was also an article in Guitar Player magazine.

[@cool_guitarist3178]

the real reason the pickups angled is to compensate for the string spacing

[@solarismoon3046]

That was the neck pickup from the 335 guitar that he destroyed. It's also the same guitar that he got the frets that he used in that Charvel neck. He used a brass nut lubricated with 3-n-1 oil to help keep it in tune. The nut spacing was 1 11/16" wide. The model the Fender copied is another brand neck that Eddie used but its' spacing is 1 5/8" wide.

[@theboofin]

He took frets out of a guitar and put them in another guitar Lol???@@solarismoon3046

[@nicholasberndt6224]

David Gilmore's black Strat, perhaps? Angus Young's Gibson SG? Steve Vai's Ibanez Jem? My First Act ME502!

[@SecretsofRock]

All great suggestions, thanks!

[@svenben9868]

at 2:12 the camera zooms into one hell of a moose knuckle... holy smokes!!

[@MrMike-fm8bp]

Hey this video is on the Van Halen news desk !!

[@SecretsofRock]

They are rad guitars.

[@VanHalenFan1964]

The one & Only EVH

[@akaiyui9300]

I've been binging these series today. I love to see a video about Yngwie's "Duck" Strat and/or Ritchie Blackmore's Strat (the one with a strap button on the headstock) although there is barely any info that Strat other than a video that can be found here in KZbin.

[@SecretsofRock]

Both are now on the list

[@akaiyui9300]

@@SecretsofRock Thanks!

[@lgmnowkondo938]

I love the classical music Van Halen in the background....cool!

[@danielmatus4864]

Frankie isnt the only guitar that is on VH1, theres also the Shark that was used on songs that didnt need any tremolo, and an old Gibson Les Paul Junior, as seen in some alternative VH1 album cover shots

[@tanneryordan]

The junior wasn't used on any of the first album tracks, and most likely not on any other album. He is only pictured with it

[@ihop4no14]

The "Shark" that you refer to was an Ibanez Destroyer. Eddie cut out part of the body and tried to make it look like a shark. However, it was still in the original shape of a Destroyer (that looked a lot like a Gibson Explorer) when he recorded "You Really Got Me." (He turned the volume down all the way on the neck pickup and used the toggle as a kill-switch during for that stuttering sound on the solo).

[@tannrrsmiddy]

= awesome !!!!!!!!!!! thanks 4 sharing !!!!!!!!!!!! evh 4 ever !!!!!!!!!!!

[@SecretsofRock]

Glad you enjoyed it! Are there any other famous guitars you'd like to see a video about?

[@MrMike-fm8bp]

Excellent video !! Very well done !

[@SecretsofRock]

Thank you very much!

[@reecesaracino8188]

Real shame he is gone but still, he was way ahead of his time

[@pezzjune8928]

Awesome series, please do the Brian May's one

[@SecretsofRock]

Great guitar, great idea.

[@solarismoon3046]

First off thank you for your enthusiasm in sharing this video with us. Second the body was $50.00 and the neck was $80.00. I know this from the April 1980 Guitar Player interview. That bridge pickup was from a 1961 Gibson 335 that he said he destroyed. In his own words " I did everything to that guitar that you could think of to destroy it!" So in doing he used the frets from that guitar and put them in the Charvel neck that he bought along with the ash body from Lynn Ellsworth in 1974. The Fender Stratocaster tremolo was from a 1966 Strat - not from a 1958 Strat! That body was another Strat for a while before Eddie swapped it out and put a white pickguard on it with a rosewood fretboard on a maple neck. Then for whatever reason he said that he put a maple neck on it and liked the feel better and then put the white on it and made the pickguard for a sheet of vinyl from a guitar supplier in Van Nuys. Eddie said himself in the April 1980 cover story that he rewound that pickup by hand to take out the midrange mud in it so that it would be louder in treble response. Then he said he put it in a Yuban coffee can then he put paraffin wax but never said who made it. Those aren't Schaller machines but Mighty Mite machine heads that look like them. There's no stamp on the backside denoting their make. "In the April 1980 cover story Eddie said: "That's just some garbage pickup I threw in there for the album cover. I took it out later". Meaning that YES - Eddie did use a lot of other guitar pickups in that Frankenstrat. There have been a lot of stories and stories that are from different sources but I believe Eddie's version over theirs. This guitar originally had a Charvel neck on a Charvel body that Eddie himself routed and mounted the pickup to it directly. This is why it looks so poorly done. He also believed that the tone would be more solid if directly mounted the pickup rather than suspended. And the tone knob Eddie said "The tone is in the guitar. I can turn the volume down and it will clean up and be less distorted. So I put a tone knob on it from a Strat - I think the same '66 Strat that the tremolo is from." So yeah - Eddie should know his own guitars. And there have been a number of guitar necks on that Strat. One was the Charvel neck from the Bumblebee Strat at one time. No one knows - not even Eddie knows exactly how many but there has been a succession of them over the years. That Strat neck on there now is not the original Charvel neck - that one hangs on the wall in his 5150 studios. It has a much bigger headstock than the one that Fender copied for their signature series guitar. This guitar at one time also had a Mighty Mite Les Paul jackplate for the volume knob when it was painted red with the Fender tremolo and a black Strat neck that had been sanded down. Some of these necks were from Japan and made by ESP but sold through Mighty Mite which was just about the only guitar aftermarket maker and supplier throughout the seventies. This guitar has undergone so many changes and things to make it more playable than most people will ever know!

[@theboofin]

My Guitar Player mag says 1958 bridge...

[@solarismoon3046]

@@theboofin Everyone's Guitar Player magazine says that. But it's wrong. Eddie tells a lot whoppers that aren't true! The only '58 Strat that you hear is in "Finish What Ya Started". That's the only guitar with a 1958 Strat bridge on it that you hear in any song from Van Halen. Eddie misremembered and outwardly lied about a lot of the things that he did to guitars over the years and in what order to keep people from copying him exactly. This is why you'll read different stories from the same guitars for years in different interviews. But the earliest interviews he says that was a 1966 Stratocaster bridge. Later it was a '61 Strat bridge. So your guess is a good as anyone else's.

[@Emanater]

Great video but to top it off with the DLR/sexy Flanders wins the internet today 😂😂😂

[@SecretsofRock]

Thanks!

[@Kinger1625]

I accidentally hit this searching for another video….you had me in 10secs. L and S ❤️

[@SecretsofRock]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@muletsag300]

My favorite part was learning about the white pickguard he had on. I only knew about him cutting up a piece of vinyl as a makeshift pickguard (California).

[@solarismoon3046]

It was only a piece of vinyl and not a record album.

[@gregromeo5802]

Can you do one on the Jerry Cantrell blue dress G&L? Thanks

[@tanneryordan]

The timeline of the first incarnation of the guitar took a lot longer than labelled here. The body was used with the factory amber colored sealer on it for a little while, and then it actually stayed black for a little bit, being the receiver of many parts from his 61 strat. eventually he would put the first maple neck on it and it would be painted the way it's seen in 78

[@tanneryordan]

also the quarter never moved despite eddie's recollection. the BRIDGE was moved because he originally installed it in the wrong position.

[@solarismoon3046]

That was a 1966 Strat that he got the tremolo from. And the tone knob came from that same guitar.

[@tanneryordan]

@@solarismoon3046 66 strats had big headstocks. there are tons of pics with the regular sized headstock. his strat was definitely a 61, which is where the neckplate (61071) came from. the logo on the headstock WAS a misplaced late 60s decal, but it was a 61 neck underneath.

[@solarismoon3046]

@@tanneryordan That wasn't a big headstock until 1967. In 66 they still had small headstocks until August of that year. 1967 was the first full year that these were big headstocks because I've played on a couple of these and Fender reissued the 66 Strat with a small headstock which would've been correct for that year. And by that time they still weren't serialized with the first number of the year. This didn't happen until the late seventies. I have 1970 Strat with a big headstock and the CBS logo on it. This is when they still had PAT. PEND. saddles. The serial number on it is an 80 at the beginning. So NO - that's not how they serialized their guitars then. You'd think so since it is now but sadly it wasn't at that time.

[@tanneryordan]

@@solarismoon3046 there are a multitude of reasons that it is a 61 strat and not a 66. ed’s neck had the wider 12 fret dot spacing: not a 66. ed’s had an inconsistent, thicker black burst which was characteristic of early 60s: 66’s were thinner and very consistent. ed’s had a mint green guard: 66’s came with white guards. my deduction with the neckplate was completely valid because 66 neckplates 1. had the F fender logo in the center (ed’s did not) and 2. had 7 digit serial numbers. ed’s 61071 neckplate does not refer to 61 simply because the first two digits are “61” BUT they printed only 59000-70999 in 1961, so it’s a 61. i guess i’m not sure how you feel so inclined to call it a 66 when nobody important has ever eluded to that. eddie actually mistakenly called it a 58 strat.. which is obviously not true. it’s pretty conclusively a 61 with everything i presented.

[@aaronpond3943]

Great video, can you do a video about Malcolm Young's Gretsch?

[@mike04574]

You should do one on the Flying V next

[@SecretsofRock]

Great idea!

[@TerroristNeutralizer]

I have held that piece of history in my hands.

[@ziggytricks4194]

Nice doc... But the R/B/W with the kramer neck is actually a different guitar all together. He got a contract with Kramer around '85/'86 and they tried their best to re-create Frankie. In interviews w EVH he said at that time he "retired" the original.

[@bruzanHD]

Eddie did have a kramer strat head, beak head, and banana head neck on the frankie at some point. The guitar went through tons of necks. There were kramer frankenstein copies and the the kramer 5150 and other tour guitars which were not based on the frankie.

[@solarismoon3046]

@@bruzanHD ALL those guitars were based on Frankie!! The only difference were the ones that Paul Unkert made for Eddie which had solid tops on them. They were Kramer guitars that were routed from the backside.

[@MGB18]

Eddie = GOAT hands down!

[@jaxonmoon9815]

Have you done any on dimebag?

[@Mason.Hacker]

My favorite part was learning about the inovatuon with the guitar (U.S)

[@axnyslie]

Bought at Boogie Bodies in 1976 for $80 & $50. So adjusted for inflation the Frankenstrat today would cost Eddie about $700

[@proof10]

Where can I find the same wallpaper at the start of your video?

[@SecretsofRock]

I wish I knew where I found it. I was sure it was from mural in a bar in Providence, Rhode Island but I can't remember the bar's name.

[@torstenbangert4026]

Great

[@lmao7439]

Ah yes , Edward lodewijk van halen ,a true american original

[@justinkrann7406]

I wanna know about the yellow one.

[@sloopylaulau]

2:10 mooseknuckle

[@OttoNomicus]

I discovered the secret of how Eddie got the idea for the tape design. When they make guitars they do an operation called "binding", in which they wrap the guitar body with flat tape-like rope to hold it together while the glue sets. They wrap it around at various angles, just like the Frankenstrat tape. Eddie said he got his guitar body at the factory where they made them, from a seconds bin because it has a knot in it. He would have seen a bunch of guitar bodies hanging up with the binding on them and it stuck in his head. In interviews, he would never say where he got the idea, he said he didn't know why he did it, he just did. Well it makes perfect sense now when you see bound guitar bodies. To see it, find a video whose exact title I can't put in this comment or it will get auto-deleted, so I have to do it in a sneaky way to beat the algorithm. I'll write the title but with one word hashed out, then give a riddle to answer to get that word. The part that shows the binding process starts at 6: 36. "Inside the ****** Guitar Factory". Riddle: what company makes Les Pauls?

[@bobbybergdoll4377]

Up In Smoke, battle of the bands.

[@solarismoon3046]

That's not why Eddie did this. He said in his own words "I wanted my guitar to look fast - they way I play. I wanted it to kick ass and scream which it does." That's why he used the stripes - to resemble a race car. Watch the Van Halen guitar video posted on here by Guitar World when they interview Eddie himself as he tells the story of Frankie.

[@user-rt9zq8rs9k]

There's a really familiar stripe design artwork from the Netherlands when the family was still living there. It could have been the inspiration for the stripe design as well .

[@billspringer3744]

Ah common, give Dave a break. Hey , hey, hey . . .

[@SecretsofRock]

It's all in good fun, I mean no harm, only humor.

[@carloslozada470]

It ain't the guitar it's the player Eddie changed rock music forever

[@Backstabbio]

Agh, at 2:10 my eyes went to the wrong place... gah!

[@darthvaydr]

All the guitar bits on Van Halen 1 that didn’t include the vibrato were actually recorded with an Ibanez Destroyer, not the Frankenstrat.

[@solarismoon3046]

It was the shark guitar that was made from an Ibanez Destroyer. Everyone knows that now.

[@patrickconners]

Nuts at 2:13

[@solarismoon3046]

Oh, GOD!!! Once you see it you can't unsee it! Thanks for noticing.

[@skylineXpert]

Found northern ash frankie body on KNE guitars. After eddies death i want to do it myself because i cannot afford the custom shop 07' which can trade hands for 30.000 to 100.000 usd But so far i start out with a Harley Benton st62 basswood body. Floyd rose special cheap online china neck with locking nut (10 mm drilled tuner holes) Gotoh Sg387 tuners Might graduate to something bigger as i got through a lot of cheap generic brands. Even got my hands on the 71' quarter and reflectors for the later project

[@solarismoon3046]

Um NOWHERE did Eddie or anyone else connected with the Frankenstrat said that it was northern ash! This was never said when Eddie made this guitar from parts. He just said "It was an ash Charvel body with a Charvel neck".

[@jralanmorgan]

Is it possible to convince me you're not Keith Willams from 5 Watt World?

[@SecretsofRock]

Sadly, I have no mustache :(

[@jralanmorgan]

@@SecretsofRock still not convinced, but I appreciate the discourse.

[@user-rt9zq8rs9k]

Eddie didn't boil his PAF pickup in surfboard wax . He melted the wax THEN he dipped his pickup in the wax . If he boiled the pickup , it would have ruined it .

[@davespin9034]

Wonder if Eddy ever regretted modding the original white striped 1st album guitar, by then he had plenty money to make lots of the red version.

[@philybates]

Eddie Van Halen bought the Boogie Bodies guitar parts from Wayne Charvel’s shop.. at least get the story right

[@RichardGutierrezRG]

Please see Johnny B. Guitars excellent videos on the history of Edward's guitar. In building his own 'Frankie' he has researched the ever loving history of this guitar. He goes into incredible detail, even finding where the knot was-lower horn and comparing pictures of the bare wood body and seeing where the factory second wood halves were glued with detailed pictures from the Play It Loud Metropolitan Museum exhibit. He has a series of these videos. Any Ed fan will freak with all the info. He even pinpoints the day Ed may have painted the guitar white with black stripes as well as when he may have painted it with the red color (using info from one of Ed and Alex's friends and tour stops before the red paint and first official concert with 'Frankie'!!! m.kzbin.info/www/bejne/mXLdlqGqhLSWgtE

[@largefather]

That was an incredible video. Sadly he got a copyright infringement notice from Zloz recently and had to take it down.

[@EthanSchull]

2:15 bro had no circulation🤣🤌✨

[@LeftBehindBand2023]

I tested people at school before saying whose guitar is this and like no one knew besides two or three people

[@solarismoon3046]

That's sad because these kids today don't even know what real music even is!

[@theboofin]

He put the Gibson frets in the neck himself... And how shoved in the background is Beck in that poster. Jesus...

[@liamgirard1010]

mick mars isabella pleaseeeeeee

[@SecretsofRock]

Great idea!

[@JULEBOL]

"American Original" born in the Netherlands

[@jonathonmccue7271]

It was grunge before grunge was a thing!

[@user-rt9zq8rs9k]

I agree . I called it crunchy though , back in the early 80s .

[@jeffreyp1855]

According to David Lee Roth, he invented the Frankenstrat. No joke! 🤣

[@solarismoon3046]

No - Dave told Eddie "You look like Roy Orbison!" when he would play the 335. So Eddie wanted a thicker sound since Dave mocked him most of the time. "He even told Eddie that he sounded too thin - too buzzy!" when he played anything with single coils - usually Strats. So this is where EDDIE got the idea of marrying the two together. A Gibson sound with a Fender guitar.

[@tanneryordan]

@@solarismoon3046The comment was referring to a quote of dave’s that he was the one who told eddie to paint the stripes. Dave didnt have anything to do with the idea of marrying the 2 brands together.

[@solarismoon3046]

@@tanneryordan Nope! In Eddie's OWN WORDS he said that he wanted to paint his guitar to look fast - how he played. I remember him saying that in an interview. I think it was the one that he was telling about the Frankentstrat video that Guitar World did. He always said that "I want my guitars to kick ass and scream which they do". I only remember him saying once that he wanted the stripes to make his guitar look like it's going fast while standing still. I don't remember where I read that but I wouldn't lie about it. David Lee Roth said a lot of things but most of them were negative. I never knew for the longest time that he played guitar too! I see know why he told Eddie: "Nobody wants to hear you play keyboards man!" in reference to the 1984 album where Eddie used a lot of synthesizer for most of the songs.

[@tanneryordan]

@@solarismoon3046 eddie said equally as much bullshit as dave, even from the beginning. EVERYTHING eddie has said has to be researched so deeply because he has lied, and misremembered so much. you can almost discount anything he said after 2004 because it 1. had been so long since everything happened and he didn't care to remember and 2. He was a completely hateful addict who dragged down anyone he could... I hope it doesnt sound like I hate eddie. He is my favorite guitar player ever. I just am conscious of the crap that he has said to either consciously muddy the waters, or just misrememberings. He has also made up stories to cover his tracks as well. The "Jimmy page" tapping story being one of them.

[@solarismoon3046]

@@tanneryordan Yeah sadly Eddie did fall off the bandwagon HARD in the early 2005 - 2008 era. He was back on the heroin and dope. It's hard to see someone that you admire destroy themselves. It's even harder when it's someone that you love and care about. I don't understand the appeal of drugs but most people run from their problems instead of facing them which is why pot is so popular now. It's also the reason that Valerie left him. She couldn't stand by and watch him self destruct. Once he started smoking again and the drugs she split. Most people are their own worst enemy without even realizing it.

[@lueysixty-six7300]

You never said anything about the Floyd Rose. Hmmmmm.... 🤔

[@user-rt9zq8rs9k]

That's a whole nother story and could've added another ten or so minutes

[@andriasfajarutama9963]

Eddie,s mother... Real Indonesian people

[@pnutbutrncrackers]

Not being a curmudgeon, but this video is mostly correct, though not entirely. I won't make a list of the imperfections.

[@jamesh1625]

Malcolm Young…where is it now??

[@hansolo2121]

Eddie was not an "American original" though... He was a native Dutchman born and raised in The Netherlands. When they arrived in the US by boat Eddie hardly spoke a single word of English. And he and his brother were treated like foreigners and outcasts in the US. And they always kept speaking Dutch with their parents until the end. As their first language was Dutch, not English.

[@spidermanfan.3161]

You should make a Vid on billie joe Armstrong’s “blue” Strat :D

[@SecretsofRock]

Great idea. Will do.

[@solarismoon3046]

That's just some piece of shit Strat copy that he threw together from parts but FAR from Frankie!

[@curtisnewton895]

you got it all wrong the guitar used for the first album was the explorer and he broke the first pick guard of the frankenstrat

[@tanneryordan]

he used both the destroyer and frankenstein on the first album

[@bobbybergdoll4377]

@@tanneryordan and an SG Jr.

[@tanneryordan]

@@bobbybergdoll4377 uh no. that was used for the slide guitar on Dirty Movies on Fair Warning.

[@SteveCarmichael]

@7:51 is not Frankie. Different guitar.

[@henrygrossart52]

They’re saying it’s just matching the paint