Metropoulos Forum

A few people have asked me about the guitars I use for Van Halen 1 stuff and I know I have posted pics of both of these guitars in other threads, but I realized I never took a pic of them together. Here are my '75-'76 Ibanez Destroyer that I built in the image of Ed's in the Musikfoto.com photos and my 1989 Fender Eric Clapton "Blackie" model guitar that I customized into a '77-'78 style B&W Frankenstein...way less accurate than my Destroyer, but it gets the job done for first album tremolo tracks. I often refer to the Fender in my posts as my "Clapton/VH-1 strat"...

The strats paintjob looks accurate enough to me. Nice job and lovely guitars!!

julkke wrote:The strats paintjob looks accurate enough to me. Nice job and lovely guitars!!

Thanks! I had my guitar painter guy redo the paint job on the Fender a while ago to get it more accurate but they still didn't get the "gull/moustache" part right and I'm sure there are numerous other inaccuracies. It was purchased by my drummer in a pawn shop with a terrible black and white striped VH type scheme on it, but it looked nothing like Ed's. It is a great player though and of course I really love my Destroyer!

Great looking stuff. I certainly wouldn't be sweating the minor detail stuff. If someone couldn't catch the VH vibe from those guitars, they simply are not a fan of Rock Music.
Ed's B&W strat saw a few different necks anyway. Some 21 fret and some 22 fret.

jnew wrote:Great looking stuff. I certainly wouldn't be sweating the minor detail stuff. If someone couldn't catch the VH vibe from those guitars, they simply are not a fan of Rock Music.
Ed's B&W strat saw a few different necks anyway. Some 21 fret and some 22 fret.

Thanks! I will probably do a more detailed B&W Frankenstein at some point, but I'm really enjoying the Clapton/VH-1 a lot for now

Where did you get that long trem bar?

Yeah, where did it come from (Tremelo bar). I got one from Kyle (Divebombinc.) I need to check back with him (then again, I dont know if I can wait 6 months ).

It is the bar that came with the Clapton guitar. It is not accurate to Ed's original. Ed's is exactly like the one that came with my '68 Fender strat...much straighter, almost no angle. Those bars are tough to find. I found a replacement on eBay awhile ago from a dude that had like 20 of them to sell, but he has long since sold out of them. They were just $20. The guy just had a bunch of original 70's style bars. I broke the original on my strat and needed a replacement...

I didn't know Kyle sold them...are they the correct straight arms?

Mine is straighter, but the same length as yours (all of the plastic tip exceeds the bodies edge). I am SO used to it that NOTHING else will do. Kyle probably has more, I dont know though. I got mine (the WHOLE tremelo, though I just use the arm from it) as sort of a "apology' of sorts, for taking 3 times(no 4 times) longer than he said. I ordered a 2 piece hard ash body, along with a 2 piece maple neck. He sent a Mexican spaced Fender tremelo along cause the Body was routed (6 mounting screws) for a Mexican tremelo. I specified 'VINTAGE' Fender. Oh well, I still have the tremelo arm.