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Kramer Facts 99% of the people who are building The EVH 5150 paint job guitars are using Cheap Japanese Kramer's as the core for the job. In fact Kramer never made a non tilt headstock in the USA. The only ones that came with the non tilt headstock are the Korean made Strikers and 1 model Japanese Focus. I have seen some of these guitars and they are far from accurate. So be careful if you are considering buying one of those. Floyd Rose Installation Secrets I have been installing Floyd Rose Tremolos since 1983 in fact I was installing them when you actually had to buy them directly from Floyd himself. Myself and my partner at the time learned some neat installation tricks. In fact many people who install Floyds (including some major companies) simply aren't aware of how to install one the correct way. For example many companies don't install the locking nut as tight as it should be. I have seen some installations where the locknut is ever so slightly loose. This creates tuning issues and can throw a guitar out of tune. 
If you Like the Kramer Beretta styled guitars
5150
Original Frankenstrat
Note From Ed Roman Michael McGuire (Hey Mikey) has been a long time Van Halen
Freak, He used to come into the store with his dad when he was just a kid.
He would order special parts made up so he could build copies of these
fabulous guitars that he loves so much. Eventually he came to work at the
store. Mikey became one of our prodigy builders, He caught on quickly and was
soon building much better than average guitars. My opinion is that a guitar
has to be loved from it's inception to be more than just a block of wood
with strings on it. The Axology of Edward Van Halen By Michael McGuire
2007
Eddie’s
most famous guitars
Interesting Footnote: The CBS strat headstock has a Gibson logo, and the very fine black stripes are actually electrical tape. Today his pickups are custom wound. Contact Ed Roman for Custom Wound duplicates or get the special Tom Holmes pickups that emulate the 50's Gibson. Van Halen II
Not venturing far from the
first guitar, it features a single humbucker pickup, one volume control,
maple neck and a tremolo. This guitar did have one new feature, the locking
tremolo which was developed by Floyd Rose.
This
guitar was used on many of the recordings of the first three albums. Anytime
you don’t hear a dive-bomb or tremolo, chances are that Eddie was using this
guitar. He loved it. The guitar was originally an Ibanez
Features
include two humbuckers, two volumes, and a selector switch which Eddie used
for another little trick. Just listen to “You Really Got Me” and you’ll know
what I’m talking
Interesting
footnote: Three of the tuners are chrome
and the other three are gold. Fair Warning
(Unchained)
This guitar is still available because no one ever trademarked the design. Contact Ed Roman. Interesting Footnote: Eddie has patented a device that instantly drops the low E string to a D for locking tremolos aptly name the “D tuna
1984
Normal people look at this thing and have to think it is the ugliest thing they have ever seen. Guitarists look at it and think the exact opposite. Eddie has played this on every tour & it has the battle scars to prove it. Eddie broke the original neck which led him to replace it a handful of times.
Why?? Because he thought it looked cool.
Interesting Footnote: At one point the
guitar had a Hockey stick or “Banana” headstock neck which was originally
designed by J. Frog. Kramer made it famous. 5150
Interesting Footnote: Eddie split the
headstock at the sixth tuner and had
Ernie Ball fix it. The company put a Music Man logo over the Kramer logo.
Honorable mention: The “1984” guitar has all of the same features with a slightly different stripe pattern. This was used as a backup to the 5150. OU812
Definitely, one of Eddie’s most bizarre guitars. Eddie always likes new and interesting things. The Steinberger caught his attention. The features on this guitar were very futuristic; Active EMG humbuckers, Fiberglass neck and body, no headstock, and a tremolo that seemed nearly impossible to comprehend. The Trans Trem system is
unique in that it transposes and locks the strings so that it is still in
tune. Eddie loved it. But there was still something missing. The Red, White
& Black stripes.
Interesting Footnote: Eddie made
it cool to play a Steinberger.
Note from Ed This of course is nowhere near all of Eddie's Guitars, He has lots of really cool and interesting guitars. some old 79 Dean V's a lot of Steinbergers, He has LSR number 2, I built it for him in the mid nineties. The guitars in this article are the signature guitars
that made him famous. I personally have a copy of every one of them in my
collection. And I know where some of the original high quality
copies are. Contact me directly if you are looking for any particular model.
I have a line on most of them. The Sexy Seven
Interesting Footnote: The OU812 Steinberger was used on 5150, You can hear the trans trem You can own the whole collection for about $23,000.00 that's 2 thousand cheaper than just the reissue Frankenstrat from Charvel. I am looking for other people who would like to contribute to this website in a positive way. So I am publishing this short little gem of information from Mike McGuire. Michael McGuire (Hey Mikey) has been a long time Van
Halen Freak, He used to come into the store with his dad when he was just a
kid. He would order special parts made up so he could build copies of these
fabulous guitars that he loves so much. eventually he came to work at the
store and became one of our prodigy builders, He caught on quickly and was
soon building much better than average guitars. My opinion is that a guitar
has to be loved from it's inception to be more than just a block of wood
with strings on it. BTW, there are hundreds of crappie copies out there. most of them are made on cheap plywood imported Kramers and most of them are pretty cheesy. We usually have knowledge of used ones floating around.
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Obviously
the guitar best well known for this album is the original Black and White
Frankenstrat. This heavily valued guitar started out life as a $130.00,
factory second, fire wood, neck and body which Eddie bought from a company
called Boogie Bodies. He took it home and immediately
sprayed it black with a can of Schwinn bicycle paint. He also made a
pickguard for it. Eddie loved the sound of an old Gibson PAF. humbucker, so
he chiseled a hunk of wood out of the body so the pickup could fit. He also
liked the strat tremolo but had trouble keeping it in tune. He installed a
brass nut, had to keep it lubricated, and turned the ball end of the string
in sync with the turning of the machine head as he tuned the instrument. The
guitar ended up getting the stripe pattern as he masked off the guitar and
sprayed white, keeping only what he wanted to be black. 
This guitar was featured in the
artwork of the second album. It was finished and delivered just
in time for the photo shoot. Although Eddie used this guitar live during the
tour, he never really used it again unlike most of the other guitars. 
Soon, almost every guitar he had will use this system.
Destroyer which was
only made for a few years. Our corporate friends at Gibson Sued for design infringements.
about. As you can probably
assume, Eddie couldn’t leave this one alone either. Armed with a saw, he
transformed the original shape into something resembling a shark’s jaw.
Hence the nickname, “Shark”. He then proceeded to stripe and paint the
guitar with white and red metallic colors.
Eddie
only used this guitar live for the song Unchained. He needed a guitar
that was already tuned to “Drop D” since it is difficult to do so live with
a locking tremolo. The alluring
features of this guitar are the various circles and the fact that it has not
been well photographed. I guess Eddie was getting
tired of just the stripes so he decided to go with a rather bizarre look for
this one. Otherwise it is a pretty standard Eddie guitar with all of the
right ingredients. 
This is the most famous &
recognizable guitar Eddie ever made. What can I say about this guitar. It’s
the shit!!!
Probably
the second most well known of Eddie’s guitars is the 5150. This
became his main stage guitar after he retired the Frankenstrat. The guitar
was actually a backup on the 1984 tour. Eddie seemed to demote and
promote guitars regularly, but never lost interest in what was suitable for
him. Built much like the other guitars, the 5150 was made by a little known
company called Kramer. Eddie and Kramer built many 5150 style guitars that
were either used by Eddie, or given away to friends or contests. The only
really interesting features on the guitar are the “Space Tape” numbers
and stars. 
