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This is one hell of a cool-looking six-string

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The comfort of the neck has always been one of any Van Halen-inspired or designed guitar's major talking points. This one is composed of quartersawn maple with a matt-finished, lightly figured birds-eye maple fingerboard.

The neck features a compound radius from 12 inches at the nut, flattening out to 16 inches at the top fret. New features here consist of a pair of graphite rods that run under the 'board either side of the truss rod channel for additional stiffness and stability, and an extremely strong offset four-screw join.

Also included are 22 slinky vintage-style frets that are certainly a departure from the Frankenstein's jumbo wires – they're also manufactured from stainless steel, significantly reducing the need for future dresses or maintenance.

The pickups comprise a pair of hand-wound Alnico-loaded zebra humbuckers (with four-conductor wiring), each one mounted directly onto the guitar's body.

"Eddie had a specific sound and feel in mind for both bridge and neck pickups," says Bowcott. "After going through numerous sets and not finding exactly what he was looking for, he suggested having some made in-house at Fender and very quickly the desired sonic results were attained. They're double-dipped in wax to prevent them from being microphonic."

Ed has even turned his attention to the volume and tone controls, ultimately deciding to plump for a brace of 250k low-friction pots from Bourns – a company that manufactures intimate parts for computers, mobile phones and the auto industry. They're topped by MXR-style control knobs and do possess a very smooth rotation.