There were several guitars made by other brands that are in some way related to Edward Van Halen. That also speaks about how important Ed's wood has been in guitar construction.
| Gibson EVH (prototype) |
81685642 |
[ +9 ] |
| Neal Moser VH Logo |
|
[ +15 ] |
| John Carruthers EVH GTR |
|
[ +6 ] |
Regarding his first striped project (the black and white guitar seen on the first album's cover), Edward bought the ash body from Linn Ellsworth in 1975 for fifty dollars and the neck (also a cast-off) for eighty dollars.
Originally, the body came with single-coil bridge, neck, and middle pickup positions pre-routed and Edward, with the help of a chisel, excavated a hole to house a humbucker in the bridge position. He placed in this chiseled hole a PAF (short for "Pattent Applied For") from a 1961 Gibson ES-335. The pickup was also "ruined" (in Ed's words) but sounded good so it's what he used. The single-coil neck pick-up was completely disengaged.
The guitar was first sprayed with black and then white Scwinn acrylic lacquer bicycle paint and mounted a black strat-style pickguard (also home-made) eventually only covering the two front electronics routings.

The guitar was eventually repainted with red, black and white stripes and orange truck reflectors added to the back of the guitar. This red-Frankenstrat first appeared as the black and white guitar pictured on the debut VH album. The nut was brass and the tailpiece unit was from a 1961 Fender Stratocaster. This guitar was Edward's main instrument for the first several albums and tours.
During the band's second world wide stampede Van Halen replaced the original tremelo with then-prototype Floyd Rose. A quarter was attached just under the top-back side of the floyd Rose to keep it from rising up.
That first Linn Ellsworth neck was broken by the guitarist's rigorous stage antics and replaced with whatever was handy (including a Danelectro at one point). The Ellsworth neck sported Gibson jumbo frets (in Ed's words..."
I put those in with the help of some Crazy Glue").
The tuning heads were Schallers. Like he says: "
There's really no secret. The reason I use what I use is through trial and error..." and that was basically it.
Edward introduced the Stienberger Tran's Trem equipped guitar into his arsenal in 1986. This transposing trem first appeared on the 5150 album and tour. The trans-trem tremelo can be heard on the songs "Summer Nights" and "Me Wise Magic" to name a few.
Ed uses the Fernandes Sustainer pickup which is housed in a Custom Wolfgang guitar, an option not offered by Peavey. The sustainer can be heard on the songs "Me Wise Magic" and "A Year To The Day" to name a few.

Ed has been seen using a Wolfgang Special's equipped with the Steinberger transtrem which replaces his customized Stienberger guitar.
Other guitars used:
- Fender (another possible endorsement before Ernie Ball / Music Man) - various Strats & Teles, Tele used on Runaround;
- Gibson 1958 Korina wood Flying V - used on Hot For Teacher, Top Of The World;
- Gibson 6/12 string double neck - used on Secrets;
- Coral Sitar - used on Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love;
- Parker Fly - used live with Neil Young.
The Ibanez Destroyer pictured on the front of "Women & Children First" was used on many of the Roth era albums when he didn't require a trem (You Really Got Me), Ed really regrets hacking the big lump out of the back as it destroyed the tone of the korina body.