Ed was a big influence on me but as much about rhythm guitar and the attitude the comes through the tone. The two hand thing is such a small part of what made Ed great (IMO) that when I play eruption I hardly ever bother playing that part . Go back and listen to (in tune) distorted minor chords with the 3rd ringing .
The guitar was never available and subsequent versions not accurate and not very good . I wanted to build this to look right but more importantly play and sound right. The continued attempts are because of dissatisfaction of the accuracy visual or not how I remembered it sounding acoustically . This guitar must in order to work for me exude the vibe of the original, feel like your favourite jeans, sound right and play as good as anything available. Hopefully I will get it there but along the way I saw a lot of people doing this and it got competitive. I see some great replicas out there but only in the paint. The rest is missing and the guitars are not being judged by the reason that it was Ed's number one in the first place and a guitar he still used as a tone reference after it was retired from live work. This final build is a guitar that I am confident will tick all the boxes in a "new" version with unashamed new hardware in its best iteration. Correct very selected woods, paint that is very thin but also very hard for tonal reasons. Stainless steel frets and a neck that has more in common with the last custom shop Wolfgang that the bodge it ESP conversion by Paul Unkert . Yes I could have easily made the paint job perfect and clear coated it to be smooth but this is not how it needs to be to sound right . It should be as thin as possible to work with all the mishaps there to see. Will the last one have space tape and stars? maybe , I haven't decided. I n some ways the last one should be a total relic on the body and head with a perfect neck and new hardware .It may even end up being this , but for now NOS.
