Has it ever been confirmed what ASH eddie used?

[Marshall SL12301]

Just wondering if anyone knows that it is confirmed that the ash he had on the first strat body was northern and not swamp?

[dirtycooter]

Thats just a dead horse. We done kicked it back into the dirt and dust a loooong time ago. You gotta choose on your own what you think. No official weight for the replicas or an average, then even if there was is it the same weight as the original?

Sorry-you'll get opinions but nothing remotely concrete. Follow your heart here.

[allenc5150]

You often wonder, you wanna know. How deep does the rabbit hole go?

http://www.woodytone.com/2010/11/19/evh ... y-deepens/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[rgorke]

Come on, it's light hard ash, no, wait heavy swamp ash, no, I knew a guy once who use to talk to Jose all the time, wait, that was Nitro...

the smelly Cooter is right, just strongly held opinions. Get what works for you. Both woods make good geetars.

[dirtycooter]

Oh yeah-someone somewhere on a forum did say what it was made out of for sure and I had to laugh my fricken ass completely off!!!

He said Frank is made from UNOBTAINIUM!

And i thought to myself, well damn he is right! Why didn't I think of that sooner??
And i have a guitar so long thats so light from drying out and losin weight it don't even need a strap-it just floats in mid air while i jam on.

[somethin'else]

Yeah man, you gotta dumpster dive for your own junk, just like Ed did. Toss it back if it don't work right. Million cats to skin and a million ways to skin each one! The new gen of trees should get you close, no matter if you go North or South.

[motrock]

PLEXI-glass man. Has to be. Eddie used ball barings too. Its all ball barings these day! LOL

[SteadyEddie]

It's not like he used only one guitar on the first album. He used at least two. That means two types of wood, two different pickups ...

[rdodson]

He used the Frank and the Destroyer. Both made of Ash (in the Destroyer's case, Japanese Sen which is a species of Ash).

Linn cut the body. It was not "swamp ash", which was the term used back then. Linn was a cabinet/furniture maker, and those guys didn't want "swamp ash" because that is the wood that comes from under the waterline in swampy areas and if you kiln-dried that it could crack.

It was old, kiln-dried furniture grade ash. It is light. Not 50's strat feather weight, but not 5 lbs. I think the body is in the 4-4.5 lbs area. True northern ash is baseball-bat heavy. It is not that.

That info is straight from Linn who still has some of that wood left. It has knots in it. Hence the "2nd" tag.

I talked to Linn at length about this in '96 when I was interviewing him for the VH website.

[Bore Em at the Forum]

rdodson makes great points. Keep in mind, EVH wasn't a nature-loving college professor with a degree in wood species! Ed simply tried some things out that were recommended to him. If Wayne told him it was Northern Ash, and he tried it and liked it, then he was simply going to say "My guitar is Northern Ash and it sounds better." He wouldn't have examined it any further than that.

Which is why, in interviews, he claims his Destroyer is Korina, when it's actually Japanese Sen. He simply repeated what Ibanez (and probably the local guitar dealer) told him. It sounded good and he never had a need to question what he was told.

But it sure creates confusion for people who want to know the truth.....or build replicas.

[Marshall SL12301]

He used the Frank and the Destroyer. Both made of Ash (in the Destroyer's case, Japanese Sen which is a species of Ash).

Linn cut the body. It was not "swamp ash", which was the term used back then. Linn was a cabinet/furniture maker, and those guys didn't want "swamp ash" because that is the wood that comes from under the waterline in swampy areas and if you kiln-dried that it could crack.

It was old, kiln-dried furniture grade ash. It is light. Not 50's strat feather weight, but not 5 lbs. I think the body is in the 4-4.5 lbs area. True northern ash is baseball-bat heavy. It is not that.

That info is straight from Linn who still has some of that wood left. It has knots in it. Hence the "2nd" tag.

I talked to Linn at length about this in '96 when I was interviewing him for the VH website.

Thanks thats all i needed to know

[rdodson]

Yeah, lots of confusion about this because Ed didn't know. But if you want the early EVH sound up (not including Fair Warning), then you want lighter Ash. It has a certain scooped sound to it (think 50's Telecaster).

Eric Johnson's early tone was from an ash Strat (a '54 "Virginia"). His later tone became more squashed as he moved to alder. Sound familiar?

Basswood with the maple top gives an interesting tone, but it has a slower attack and lower resonant frequency. The carved top of the Wolfgang adds some of this snap/quicker response back. But lighter ash is the classic tone. Tone is really a bad term as we are describing a sound across multiple dimensions/factors (degrees of freedom).

I singled out Fair Warning because much of that record (all the non-trem stuff) was done with his vintage LP. Hence the fat clarity (he did NOT change the pickups in that guitar, though he did borrow the neck pickup for a bit). Listen to the difference between the sound of the guitar on Sinner's Swing and the solo on Push Comes to Shove. Frankie on SS and LP on PCtS.

[Marshall SL12301]

Yeah, lots of confusion about this because Ed didn't know. But if you want the early EVH sound up (not including Fair Warning), then you want lighter Ash. It has a certain scooped sound to it (think 50's Telecaster).

Eric Johnson's early tone was from an ash Strat (a '54 "Virginia"). His later tone became more squashed as he moved to alder. Sound familiar?

Basswood with the maple top gives an interesting tone, but it has a slower attack and lower resonant frequency. The carved top of the Wolfgang adds some of this snap/quicker response back. But lighter ash is the classic tone. Tone is really a bad term as we are describing a sound across multiple dimensions/factors (degrees of freedom).

I singled out Fair Warning because much of that record (all the non-trem stuff) was done with his vintage LP. Hence the fat clarity (he did NOT change the pickups in that guitar, though he did borrow the neck pickup for a bit). Listen to the difference between the sound of the guitar on Sinner's Swing and the solo on Push Comes to Shove. Frankie on SS and LP on PCtS.

Thanks for all the helpful info, i am building a charvel strat and want to use a pro mod neck and a light ash body from ???
any suggestions where to score a peroid correct cloned san dimas charvel ash body??

[rdodson]

I love the work that Musikraft does, and Scott is as big a VH fan as we are.

Make sure you source an oversized brass sustain block for your Floyd Rose. It is a big part of making the sound.

[rdodson]

https://www.musikraft.com/product-info.php?pid202.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

MK period-correct body.