When did Ed first start usin a Strat ?

[wjamflan]

This may help a bit (1 minute in):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKOeJBOo ... 96598095E6" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Good find! Unless Ed has bought him off it sounds like what several have been saying, ncluding Ed.

The burst was first with humbucker, then black to striped.

HUH???

I didn't get that from this video. He clearly says that Ed told him they were two different guitars.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKOeJBOo ... page#t=64s

That was the whole reason he went to Charvel in the first place. He wanted one for himself and ended up getting a job.....

[leadguy]

This may help a bit (1 minute in):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKOeJBOo ... 96598095E6" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Good find! Unless Ed has bought him off it sounds like what several have been saying, ncluding Ed.

The burst was first with humbucker, then black to striped.

Well, that guy wasn't employed in the shop when Ed bought the guitar parts and he also leaves out the Black Strat.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKOeJBOokDA[/youtube]

[leadguy]

Here is the black strat which, in my book, is the body he got from Charvel and is the Franky. This is a different body than the sunburst guitar.

That's my story and I'm stickin' with it.

The pickup in this strat which i am almost convinced is what was played on the 1st record strat/trem bar tunes has a PAF looking pu. I bet that is the pu that eddie got from seymour(the JB or custom wind?)

It's a Mighty Mite zebra (vintage) if there are no bobbin holes and from what I can make out there seem to be no bobbin holes.

[leadguy]

I just got someone to run the black strat photo through a photo filter program. You'll notice how black Ed's hair appears against the background in the original. The black gets pretty pixeled but it seems to show the photo has a lot of wash out between black and other colors. Nothing conclusive but one can draw a few conclusions from it. Is it really a all black strat or is it just a poor photo? There seems to be an underlying pattern that points towards a sunburst. There is also an odd line that I think is Ed's right arm refecting of the clearcoat.

No, it's a Black guitar and there are other photos of it, one has Ed with a flower (Carnation?) in his jacket.

[leadguy]

Ed could have built a Charvel sunburst, but I think AP91 did a good job of explaining why the strat in the musikfoto pics was probably the 1961 strat he always said he had. I hope he won't mind my quoting him here:

The neck is interesting in that it appears to have an "Original Contour Body" decal slightly off center to where it should be, and the Fender logo is clearly in the wrong position

The tuners do indeed appear to be Kluson Deluxes,

The second thing of interest is the fingerboard. If the photos were in color, then we could possibly be able to tell if the wood is Brazilian by the stronger reddish color alone. If the neck is of possible after market origin it would certainly not be Brazilian rosewood as it would not have been available at all after 1975 (being declared illegal to harvest). This doesn't rule out a Brazilian board, but it makes it less likely.

Also the lack of curve at the end of the fingerboard (behind the nut) is indicative of a possible answer. '59-'62 Fender necks would have been 'slab' board necks. In '62 Fender switched to a thinner veneer rosewood board that has a definitive curve. The string retainer is a butterfly clip. Fender used these from mid '56 to '71. Post '71 they switched to two string retainers.

Here's a '64 neck. Note the fingerboard 'curve',

Here is a '61 neck. Note the lack of curve and beveled and longer edge.

Ed's neck, with no curve and longer beveled edge,

I believe the neck is a 1961 Fender neck that has later replacement decals applied by Ed. (Thus tying the statement by Ed that he owned a '61, and the fact that Frankenstrat has the neck plate of a '61 Strat)

I would add to that, that it doesn't seem to be too much of a stretch to think that the rest of the guitar is his '61 Strat.

I don't know about the neck. I havn't got around to thinking about it much.

The burst body does not seem to be a Fender or a Tokai or whatever because the Boogie Bodies had a distinctive shape and especially the horns and the Burst Strat seems to fit a Boogie Bodies shape and also the horns.

[wjamflan]

Maybe evhguitars will chime back in. He seems to have a good handle on vintage strats. I am certainly no expert....

Ed says they're different guitars (Franky/Burst). Mike Eldred says Ed told him they were different guitars. The evidence points to the fact that they were different. Seems most plausible to me.

[vanhalen5150]

I just got someone to run the black strat photo through a photo filter program. You'll notice how black Ed's hair appears against the background in the original. The black gets pretty pixeled but it seems to show the photo has a lot of wash out between black and other colors. Nothing conclusive but one can draw a few conclusions from it. Is it really a all black strat or is it just a poor photo? There seems to be an underlying pattern that points towards a sunburst. There is also an odd line that I think is Ed's right arm refecting of the clearcoat.

No, it's a Black guitar and there are other photos of it, one has Ed with a flower (Carnation?) in his jacket.

.

[leadguy]

and this one.

There is a better picture of it around.

[garbeaj]

Ed also painted the Destroyer White or had someone else do it in 1976, when Wayne Charvel was too busy to paint it.

Just a small point...I believe this story is actually referring to this guitar and not the first album Ibanez Destroyer:

[garbeaj]

Well, that guy wasn't employed in the shop when Ed bought the guitar parts and he also leaves out the Black Strat.

Exactly...Eldred says he went to the shop and talked to Grover when he supposedly bought a guitar. Grover Jackson had nothing to do with the Frankenstein. Eldred himself says nothing about Wayne Charvel who had probably already sold the business to Grover by the time he got there, so I think he knows fuck-all about what happened when Ed bough the Frankenstein parts.

[garbeaj]

I just got someone to run the black strat photo through a photo filter program. You'll notice how black Ed's hair appears against the background in the original. The black gets pretty pixeled but it seems to show the photo has a lot of wash out between black and other colors. Nothing conclusive but one can draw a few conclusions from it. Is it really a all black strat or is it just a poor photo? There seems to be an underlying pattern that points towards a sunburst. There is also an odd line that I think is Ed's right arm refecting of the clearcoat.

No, it's a Black guitar and there are other photos of it, one has Ed with a flower (Carnation?) in his jacket.

.

These pictures that vanhalen5150 posted show what appears to be a sunburst guitar...you can clearly see the lighter color as you get close to the pickguard. But then other Jenny Lens pictures seem to show a straight up black guitar. I don't have a clue what this all means, but it is strange that some pictures look like a sunburst and others look all black.

[rgorke]

This may help a bit (1 minute in):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKOeJBOo ... 96598095E6" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Good find! Unless Ed has bought him off it sounds like what several have been saying, ncluding Ed.

The burst was first with humbucker, then black to striped.

Well, that guy wasn't employed in the shop when Ed bought the guitar parts and he also leaves out the Black Strat.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKOeJBOokDA[/youtube]

A response to this and to Bill. We have seen Ed, pre VH1 with two strat like guitars: One burst, one Black. This guy confirms that he had a strat with a humbucker (I presume the burst) then a guitar from Charvel that ended up as the black and white stripes. Two different guitars.

So, my logic is that the black is the Charvel. This guy saw it after the picture we are using when Ed painted it white with stripes. We see it in these photos pre stripes.

[wjamflan]

A response to this and to Bill. We have seen Ed, pre VH1 with two strat like guitars: One burst, one Black. This guy confirms that he had a strat with a humbucker (I presume the burst) then a guitar from Charvel that ended up as the black and white stripes. Two different guitars.

So, my logic is that the black is the Charvel. This guy saw it after the picture we are using when Ed painted it white with stripes. We see it in these photos pre stripes.

Ok. Now it makes sense what you were saying Roger. I don't know if was true or not. Vanhalen5150 seems to be saying that the black guitar was really the sunburst in bad light. I'll leave it to him and others to prove all of that.

All I know is that Ed says Franky started as unfinished and that he painted it right away, which would disqualify the sunburst as Franky. Those with knowledge about vintage strats seem to feel confident that that the sunburst strat was a real deal strat - most likely from 1961 - with a replacement sticker from Wayne, the authorized repairman.

Ed also clearly said that the Fender Strat he was using was not the one that ended up on VH I. This means, no sunburst on VH I. I would extrapolate and say that I think it means that Ed built a whole new guitar that was used on VH I. I may be wrong, but there seems to be some sentiment that the neck on the sunburst was put onto the black strat (if it really is black). Ed's statements seem to imply that he used a "Lynn Ellsworth guitar" that he got from Charvel on VH I, not a Lynn Ellsworth body with a real Strat neck. This means ash body and maple neck to me. I know I'm stretching it for TS and others, but that's what it has always sounded like to me.

Could he have painted the ash body black and tried the rosewood strat neck on it to see if he liked it? Sure. I don't think I've ever read that Ed striped Franky right away. It doesn't mean he didn't; we just don't have it from the man himself that he did, to my knowledge.

Could he have painted his '61 sunburst Strat black, since he seemed to like the color and requested it? Sure, but we don't have evidence of that either. Maybe someone should do an overlay of those two guitars to see how they match.

I know Strat78 and others think that there are dinstictive qualities about the black strat that point to Charvel, but I don't know enough about them to say for sure. Maybe one of those folks can enlighten us now......

[wjamflan]

While we wait....

Regarding Franky:

I have talked to Wayne. Believe me, he doesn't remember.

Linn's memory is much better, and for some reason no one ever wants to talk to him. It was a body that was cut for Charvel and/or Dave, but had a knot in it. It was a standard Strat cut. It was BARE WOOD. Not black.

The neck was bought at the same time. It was a second as well, because the fretboard didn't match. The neck was QUARTERSAWN wild maple (Eastern). The fretboard was plain. Being quartersawn was a big deal, and added stability (and brightness/quick attack) to the sound.

16" radius. 1 3/4" wide at the nut. ~ .82" deep.

Ron

It was quartersawn, which is why the figuring shows up better on the shoulders of the neck. Again, this is a SECOND. The fretboard was completely flatsawn and unfigured whatsoever.

The body is northern ash, but it was from a knotty plank that Linn had sitting around (and still does). Knotty is less dense, and since it had sat it was bone dry.

HENCE, the comparatively light-weight.

So, the magic of the body is the spanky attack and sustain of the very hard norther ash, but the resonance of an airy chunk of wood.

If you really want to nail the vibe, you need a NA body, and then slowly but VERY thoroughly kiln-dry it. Linn still has most of the plank, or did ~ 5 years ago when I talked to him last.

http://forum.metroamp.com/viewtopic.php ... 8&start=15

[garbeaj]

Are there any pictures that clearly show Ed using the black strat besides the Jenny Lens photos?! I'm beginning to wonder if there ever was a black strat...