September 3, 2019
Are you a Van Halen fan and always wanted to build your own “Frankenstrat” guitar? If so, watch as YouTuber Peter Stewart builds a replica of Eddie’s famed “Frankenstrat” guitar for under $500. Peter bought a basswood body and a maple neck along with a genuine Floyd Rose™ locking tremolo and an EVH Frankenstein™ pickup. These along with other parts were used to create his replica. He used a router to carve out the wood to fit a humbucking pickup as per Ed. Other than that he used basic hand tools such as a cordless drill (nice EVH touch), a ruler, etc. Peter paid as much attention to detail as possible, working from photographs and the Internet to recreate the paint job on the guitar. It is accurate, even down to the 1971 U.S. quarter dollar coin and the cigarette burns on the headstock! According to Peter the guitar plays well but does need some adjustment. “I’m going to have a buddy of mine help me with the intonation and adjust my truss rod because the action is set just a little bit high.”
Watch the video of Peter’s replica from start to finish:
All in all, Peter did a great job on this project. One substitution I might have made would have been to replace the Frankenstein™ pickup which is a higher output (14.4Ω) with one such as the Seymour Duncan “’78 Model” which is closer in spec (9kΩ) to Ed’s original pickup.
Congratulations, Peter!
Have you ever built a guitar?
For more Van Halen stories, check out his rig from 1978 on display at The Met Museum. For more on Ed’s creations, check out “The Genius of Edward Van Halen.” Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter!