I got my first guitar on Christmas morning, 2017. The last gift that Christmas from my Mom and Stepdad. It was one of those Amazon electric guitars that comes with everything you’d need to start playing. It was dark blue, that faded to black on the perimeter, and its shape resembled a Fender Stratocaster.  The frets buzzed, it didn’t hold a pitch well, the electronics were terrible, but yet, it was perfect for my 12 year old self. I played that guitar obsessively for months until my birthday rolled around the next October. Then it got replaced with a new guitar, an Epiphone acoustic guitar. 

After a while, that poorly assembled electric guitar started falling apart. The bridge was coming off in pieces, the tuners had degraded to the point of not being able to hold a pitch at all, and the electronics got so much feedback that it could pick up radio signals. Eventually, I got new electric guitars, and I stopped playing it altogether. It just collected dust in the garage as a memory of those first few months of playing. It was completely unplayable, and yet for some reason, I decided to keep it instead of just getting rid of it. Not like there would have been any money in selling it.

Fast forward to 2021, and my new obsession was the famous guitar virtuosos. I started listening obsessively to Eddie Van Halen, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and John Mayer, observing every little detail of their playing. I noticed there was one thing that all of my guitar heroes had in common, the Fender Stratocaster in their hands. I knew that I needed one, the only problem was that there was absolutely no way I could ever afford one. I was ready to give up on owning the guitar of my dreams, until I learned how Eddie Van Halen’s famous “Frankenstrat” came to be. It was his cheap first guitar that he gutted, so he could install higher quality electronics, and a new floyd rose bridge. He finished it off with a coat of red and white paint stripes just to give it that last touch of individualism. Once the connection to my own situation clicked, I immediately dug out my first guitar out of the garage and got to work removing everything from the body.

I searched old guitar forums endlessly for inspiration. As it turned out, I was far from the only one inspired by Eddie to take their first guitar apart and make a new guitar out of it. In fact, the idea has gotten so popular that the community has given these recycled guitars a name, “Partscasters”. Over the next few months, I began acquiring parts to build my perfect guitar. I got my hands on a flamed maple neck from a company that makes replacement necks so that guitars smashed on stage may live another life. I got a bridge designed to withstand all of the crazy divebombs I saw Eddie Van Halen do endlessly in old concert videos. I made sure to get locking tuners so I wouldn’t be retuning after every song. Most importantly, I got new electronics so there would be no interference from outside signals. To finish it off, I customized my pickguard with black and blue stripes as a way of honoring Eddie. 

I had all of my parts, but then a dread sunk in. I had gotten hundreds of dollars of guitar parts with absolutely no idea of how to turn them into a guitar. Even though I had no idea where to start, I knew for certain that my grandpa would. As far as I know, there is not a thing that my grandpa can’t fix. Throughout my childhood, he was constantly building additions onto his house, or taking apart broken electronics, and then fixing them so I could play with them again. If anyone could help me turn my pile of parts into a working instrument, it would be him.

He was thrilled when I asked him to help me build the guitar. At first, he let me do everything by myself. I tried forcing things into place when they clearly didn’t fit so he stepped in. We spent hours resanding the cavities of the body to fit the new parts soldering the electronics, and the most surprisingly difficult part of the process, screwing the tunings pegs in place. Finally, I strung it up, tuned it,  plugged in, and prepared for the moment of truth. I strummed a power chord and then… nothing. A quick tightening of the output jack later, and it played beautifully. The single coil pickups created that signature glassy tone I so desperately desired. I’m biased of course, but by the time we were finished, it was one of the best guitars I have ever played. 

When I play that guitar and marvel at my craftsmanship, what I’m really most proud of are the values that my grandpa taught me that night without lecturing me once. I was ready to do the bare minimum and create another shoddy guitar, just with more expensive parts. My grandpa stepping in and showing me the right way of doing it taught me that whenever I choose to pursue something, I should commit fully to it. My grandpa dropping everything he was doing to help me showed me the importance of being there for the people I love, just like he did for me. I always worried that my ambitions to pursue music professionally wouldn’t be supported by my family, but that night he showed me nothing but support in aspiring to follow my passions. It’s easy to play that guitar then get swept up in a fantasy and feel like a rockstar, but the real rockstar behind that guitar is my grandpa who encouraged me every step of the way.