ChadVanHalen
New member
I'm building myself a new guitar, and some peeps have shown interest in it (And by some I think one) so in preparation of everything getting here, I'll start the thread and give you you all prelim specs so you all can wait on bated breath alongside me waiting for the month long wait for the glorious shafts of wood... Err...
I'll post updates and also update this first post so the generations to come don't have to scroll through a bunch of bs to get to my glorious new build...
First off, the original... Played by Mick Mars in 1989, used live and in a few videos (Kickstart and Same Ol Situation I believe)
(Note, yes, I am aware this guitar ^ has what looks to be a Super D... But that's not Mick's guitar... He switched from Super D to JB between Shout and Theatre of Pain... So, nyah)
I'm getting the body made for me by Mitch at KnE guitars over in Cali. He has a few "tribute" models (Most famously he has a 5150 model he sends with reflective '5150' stickers for those purists) and once I saw he had a GGG tele (Based off Mars' Girls Girls Girls telecaster... You know... The one with the tits painted on the back?) I knew I had to build myself a dedicated D standard guitar to jam to Motley Crue with. Only question is do I paint it myself and affix a mirror to it or pay someone to paint it black with the stenciled "Girls, Girls, Girls" on the front and tits on the back?... Being the broke kid I am I obviously went with the first one. It's an alder, single straight hum, one control and recessed trem (Luckily I'm no purist so I can take liberties... Especially in giving myself a recessed OFR...)
(Pictures will go here... Eventually...)
The neck is being made by Musikraft. Their banana 1 is based off the EVH/Kramer banana, so I went with that one, rosewood board, 12" radius with thin C profile (I think that's the closest spec wise I can get to one of the old late 80's Baretta necks), 22 frets with glow in the dark dots on the side of the neck (Another one of those liberties...)
(Again... Pictures... In a month...)
Underneath the mirror it looks like it's a sort of silver metallic flake... Now, had I bought the body from Warmoth I could have had them do a silver flake finish for another $200
Or do it myself. Cheap bastard-ing it again here.
I found this extremely detailed guide on flake finishing (On a tele no less) and all Chad will need to do is ruin a sifter or two
Everything else is pretty standard... OFR, Duncan JB, Schaller tuners. Cutting the plexiglass mirror and getting it nice may be another story and may require me going to a glass cutting place... But again, cheap bastard, I'll figure it out...
So there we go! As my stuff gets here and as I set it up I'll update this first post and also post below depending on how you want to read it.
Feel free to leave comments, questions, critiques, lustful desires toward me or the guitar, death threats or whatever down below
And welcome to the waiting game!
10/16/13
Hey! Well, after a bit of miscommunications and me shipping it to the wrong place Chad finally got his guitar and his neck and his days off! Took a bit longer since it decided to rain and snow since I got my guitar...
If you want to see mid process pictures and close ups you can find them on my Facebook page here but if not here's a picture of my finished product
Now all that's left is to wire her up and get the mirror cut!
11/2/13
Well, my deadline of getting her done for my show on Halloween fell right to the last hour (Literally drove from Salt Lake City to the place checking my wiring in my spandex and hair all done up straight down south to my show in Provo, tuning her up and getting the bridge all set during sound check!) but I got it done. Once I got it painted I went to my local guitar shop and had the guys I know there set her up since there's no way in hell factory shipped parts would be set up right and also asked them to check my wiring and make sure it all works properly, being the amatuer with the soldering iron I am, but their electrician guy comes in and out as he pleases so no guarantee that he'll get it done before my show which had me driving it from one guitar shop to another guitar shop to get it done right in the nick of time... But ba da da dum here she is in her (almost) finished beauty.
There was no way I'd get the mirror on with the deadline I was pushing but now I have until January I think to get a mirror cut and screwed on before my next show...
And for those who care still after all this she plays great, the custom strap is a bit high but that's not the guitar's fault and playing on 10's will take a little getting used to, and sounds great... And thank God because all the last minute stress of little minute details I overlooked (Like the kind of shaft the pot had versus the knob I needed? That was a last minute surprise of information I didn't need after having all the parts shipped to me) but it was all worth it getting to use her at as big of a venue and stage we had on Halloween to play some Crue songs with.
4/21/14
Hey remember this thing from like a year ago?
Well I finally finished it thanks to one greekjgg who isn't even a member on here except to comment on this one thread about this guitar (and thank God he did cause if not I'd still be S.O.L.!) I had it all ready to only play Motley Crue songs with my cover band but I loved it so damn much I wanted to use it with my main band when we play for a lot of peeps this summer (Use this thing in front of a few drunks or opening for Vince Neil, Night Ranger, Quiet Riot and on a short tour with Last in Line... Hmm...) so I installed a Rockinger Black Box, which is a German trem blocker that has some sort of felt built into the end the blocks the trem block, I didn't hear any others that did, and put a D-Tuna on it since we drop for one song... I'm so happy about it, it isn't funny. Rehearsal yesterday everyone (especially the singer) kept looking over and admiring the guitar, and by admiring the guitar I mean looking at their reflections seeing how they look!
Much props to greekjgg (Not sure if he wants me to use his real name on here or not, so I'll stick with user name...) not only did he do this, he helped through every stupid question I asked about it AND told me he'll keep the layout so if I need another one I wouldn't need to send him the guitar... Highly recommend his services!
Anyway, here she is...
The last picture shows how despite my best packing job the shipping company beat the living hell out of it, but I'm too lazy to fill the pock marks so I'll just keep it, no one will notice they're too busy looking at the mirror anyway
I'll post updates and also update this first post so the generations to come don't have to scroll through a bunch of bs to get to my glorious new build...
First off, the original... Played by Mick Mars in 1989, used live and in a few videos (Kickstart and Same Ol Situation I believe)
(Note, yes, I am aware this guitar ^ has what looks to be a Super D... But that's not Mick's guitar... He switched from Super D to JB between Shout and Theatre of Pain... So, nyah)
I'm getting the body made for me by Mitch at KnE guitars over in Cali. He has a few "tribute" models (Most famously he has a 5150 model he sends with reflective '5150' stickers for those purists) and once I saw he had a GGG tele (Based off Mars' Girls Girls Girls telecaster... You know... The one with the tits painted on the back?) I knew I had to build myself a dedicated D standard guitar to jam to Motley Crue with. Only question is do I paint it myself and affix a mirror to it or pay someone to paint it black with the stenciled "Girls, Girls, Girls" on the front and tits on the back?... Being the broke kid I am I obviously went with the first one. It's an alder, single straight hum, one control and recessed trem (Luckily I'm no purist so I can take liberties... Especially in giving myself a recessed OFR...)
(Pictures will go here... Eventually...)
The neck is being made by Musikraft. Their banana 1 is based off the EVH/Kramer banana, so I went with that one, rosewood board, 12" radius with thin C profile (I think that's the closest spec wise I can get to one of the old late 80's Baretta necks), 22 frets with glow in the dark dots on the side of the neck (Another one of those liberties...)
(Again... Pictures... In a month...)
Underneath the mirror it looks like it's a sort of silver metallic flake... Now, had I bought the body from Warmoth I could have had them do a silver flake finish for another $200
Or do it myself. Cheap bastard-ing it again here.
I found this extremely detailed guide on flake finishing (On a tele no less) and all Chad will need to do is ruin a sifter or two
Everything else is pretty standard... OFR, Duncan JB, Schaller tuners. Cutting the plexiglass mirror and getting it nice may be another story and may require me going to a glass cutting place... But again, cheap bastard, I'll figure it out...
So there we go! As my stuff gets here and as I set it up I'll update this first post and also post below depending on how you want to read it.
Feel free to leave comments, questions, critiques, lustful desires toward me or the guitar, death threats or whatever down below
And welcome to the waiting game!
10/16/13
Hey! Well, after a bit of miscommunications and me shipping it to the wrong place Chad finally got his guitar and his neck and his days off! Took a bit longer since it decided to rain and snow since I got my guitar...
If you want to see mid process pictures and close ups you can find them on my Facebook page here but if not here's a picture of my finished product
Now all that's left is to wire her up and get the mirror cut!
11/2/13
Well, my deadline of getting her done for my show on Halloween fell right to the last hour (Literally drove from Salt Lake City to the place checking my wiring in my spandex and hair all done up straight down south to my show in Provo, tuning her up and getting the bridge all set during sound check!) but I got it done. Once I got it painted I went to my local guitar shop and had the guys I know there set her up since there's no way in hell factory shipped parts would be set up right and also asked them to check my wiring and make sure it all works properly, being the amatuer with the soldering iron I am, but their electrician guy comes in and out as he pleases so no guarantee that he'll get it done before my show which had me driving it from one guitar shop to another guitar shop to get it done right in the nick of time... But ba da da dum here she is in her (almost) finished beauty.
There was no way I'd get the mirror on with the deadline I was pushing but now I have until January I think to get a mirror cut and screwed on before my next show...
And for those who care still after all this she plays great, the custom strap is a bit high but that's not the guitar's fault and playing on 10's will take a little getting used to, and sounds great... And thank God because all the last minute stress of little minute details I overlooked (Like the kind of shaft the pot had versus the knob I needed? That was a last minute surprise of information I didn't need after having all the parts shipped to me) but it was all worth it getting to use her at as big of a venue and stage we had on Halloween to play some Crue songs with.
4/21/14
Hey remember this thing from like a year ago?
Well I finally finished it thanks to one greekjgg who isn't even a member on here except to comment on this one thread about this guitar (and thank God he did cause if not I'd still be S.O.L.!) I had it all ready to only play Motley Crue songs with my cover band but I loved it so damn much I wanted to use it with my main band when we play for a lot of peeps this summer (Use this thing in front of a few drunks or opening for Vince Neil, Night Ranger, Quiet Riot and on a short tour with Last in Line... Hmm...) so I installed a Rockinger Black Box, which is a German trem blocker that has some sort of felt built into the end the blocks the trem block, I didn't hear any others that did, and put a D-Tuna on it since we drop for one song... I'm so happy about it, it isn't funny. Rehearsal yesterday everyone (especially the singer) kept looking over and admiring the guitar, and by admiring the guitar I mean looking at their reflections seeing how they look!
Much props to greekjgg (Not sure if he wants me to use his real name on here or not, so I'll stick with user name...) not only did he do this, he helped through every stupid question I asked about it AND told me he'll keep the layout so if I need another one I wouldn't need to send him the guitar... Highly recommend his services!
Anyway, here she is...
The last picture shows how despite my best packing job the shipping company beat the living hell out of it, but I'm too lazy to fill the pock marks so I'll just keep it, no one will notice they're too busy looking at the mirror anyway
H/S makes it look like those rare Kramer teles... Customs I believe they were called? (Been awhile since I snooped around Vintage Kramer)
