Metropoulos Forum

It seems that not many good/tight pictures exist of Ed's Bumble Bee in its original state (V-trem). With Karl Sandoval outside of the Charvel factory in summer of 78, live shots from mid-78 and the photo shoot for Van Halen II. After that, the majority of photos show up from the 1979 tour and forward with the early non-fine tune Floyd.

Does anyone have a sharp picture showing whether the original V-trem was brass or chrome? Live shots lean toward brass but stage lighting has to be taken into account. There are a couple of shots that strongly suggest chrome. Its worth noting that I've seen photos of a couple of Charvel prepros that appear to have chrome bridges with brass saddles.

If anyone has a really good pic or can definitely answer, I'd appreciate it. Working on a good replica and would like to match it closely to factory spec.

Thanks in advance.

Bore Em at the Forum wrote:It seems that not many good/tight pictures exist of Ed's Bumble Bee in its original state (V-trem). With Karl Sandoval outside of the Charvel factory in summer of 78, live shots from mid-78 and the photo shoot for Van Halen II. After that, the majority of photos show up from the 1979 tour and forward with the early non-fine tune Floyd.

Does anyone have a sharp picture showing whether the original V-trem was brass or chrome? Live shots lean toward brass but stage lighting has to be taken into account. There are a couple of shots that strongly suggest chrome. Its worth noting that I've seen photos of a couple of Charvel prepros that appear to have chrome bridges with brass saddles.

If anyone has a really good pic or can definitely answer, I'd appreciate it. Working on a good replica and would like to match it closely to factory spec.

Thanks in advance.

The pictures that I have seen look like a standard chrome Fender tremolo with various arms on it. The arm on the Van Halen II album cover looks like a Charvel to me. The clearest shots that I have seen of the guitar in this state with the Fender tremolo appear in the Zloz coffee table books. It seems obvious that it is a standard chrome Fender tremolo in these pictures.

The interesting thing to me about the black and yellow Charvel is the headstock logo. It was the first guitar to ever have a Charvel logo on it's headstock and the original logo was much smaller than any of the later logos. I have never seen anyone with the correct logo as you see it in the Zlozower Van Halen II LP photo sessions. They either cover it up with black tape as Ed ended up doing or they have the incorrect "too large" logo on it.

The places on line and on eBay that I have seen that have Charvel waterslide decals for sale all have the incorrect "too large" decals or the wrong period logo. I may have to get a graphic artist to shrink the size of the logos that I have find until it gets as close to the size of the original smaller logo as I can get it and then make a decal out of it.

I agree, looks(tremelo) to be a chrome Fender tremelo. Maybe Ed did have a gold charvel (brass)or Mighty Mite style on it too, pre non fine tuning floyd ? The Franky obviously sported a brass MM/Charvel bridge for the VH1 album cover.

Maybe he took the Franky's Fender off for a second to put it on this 'new'(BBee) guitar that he was excited about ? By judging from the picture of Ed with the pick axe, with all his axes displayed, only ONE guitar had a Fender Tremelo (Franky), so if he had a second Fender tremelo, it must have ended up in a parts bin after he had the floyd installed. All the other tremelo's were the Charvel/MM 'teardrop' hole 6 screws.

Tone Slinger wrote:I agree, looks(tremelo) to be a chrome Fender tremelo. Maybe Ed did have a gold charvel (brass)or Mighty Mite style on it too, pre non fine tuning floyd ? The Franky obviously sported a brass MM/Charvel bridge for the VH1 album cover.

Maybe he took the Franky's Fender off for a second to put it on this 'new'(BBee) guitar that he was excited about ? By judging from the picture of Ed with the pick axe, with all his axes displayed, only ONE guitar had a Fender Tremelo (Franky), so if he had a second Fender tremelo, it must have ended up in a parts bin after he had the floyd installed. All the other tremelo's were the Charvel/MM 'teardrop' hole 6 screws.

I believe that the pictures of Ed playing the black and yellow Charvel in it's standard Fender tremolo phase on the '78-'79 European tour also had Ed using the black and white Frankenstein as well, and as far as I can remember both of them had the standard Fender tremolo. I'll have to look for jimi22812's threads on both guitars and see if I can come up with something.