good article, esp sticking his finger in a power cap (whatever stopped the current from going thru his heart, saved his life), and how his father adapted after losing a finger and some teeth, which for a reed player, is pretty bad.
There's many more stories in guitar magazines about how he hacked and ruined lots of guitars (tl;dr don't remove too much wood close to the bridge), and how Randy Rhoads and he would be checking each other out kind of warily, and the hundreds of prototype guitars that were made before he started selling the wolfgang guitars under the EVH label. The first time he met Les Paul, they pulled out their picks to jam and they both had sandpaper glued to them
His guitars are basswood (which is only used in the cheapest and most expensive guitars, oddly enough) but somebody substituted ash or alder and EVH noticed it instantly. Unfortunately most of those stories aren't available unless you subscribe to said magazines.
Wood can be conductive depending upon its water content.
Even better, don't poke around in an amp unless you have at least a basic knowledge of electronics. The voltages in there are in the range of 500V, and electricity doesn't respond like you're used to at that level (DC switches, for example, need to be much bigger to resist the arcing at those voltages).
And, while its cool to see someone hack, the amount of damage EVH did to perfectly good guitars (some of them beyond that) is legendary. Learning even a little about what you are hacking goes a long way.
Interesting WRT water content; but now you mention it, I remember as a kid touching blades of grass on an electric fence and still feeling a shock.
My inside-an-amp tinkering only goes as far as pulling 2 of the el84s from a Classic 50 to half the output. It was still stupidly loud for home use though!
I have a (crappy) screwdriver with some bite marks on it from doing that to come 1000V caps in an old panasonic stereo amp. It can work. It's not a good idea, IMO.
What I believe is safe enough for me to do... but not so safe that I'd recommend anyone else do it... is to measure the voltage between the high voltage supply and the ground in the amp, and see what you'll be getting if you touch it. If it is more than a volt or so, then connect a 10K resistor between the HV and the ground.
That said, if you don't understand why you should do that (or why taking life and death electronics advice from strangers in a comment thread is a bad idea), then you might want to just not get around in there, because you can lose fingers or even die if you don't know what you're doing.
:D Go circuit bend a speak and spell or something, and leave tube amps to folks who want to know more whys before touching stuff. :D
There's many more stories in guitar magazines about how he hacked and ruined lots of guitars (tl;dr don't remove too much wood close to the bridge), and how Randy Rhoads and he would be checking each other out kind of warily, and the hundreds of prototype guitars that were made before he started selling the wolfgang guitars under the EVH label. The first time he met Les Paul, they pulled out their picks to jam and they both had sandpaper glued to them
His guitars are basswood (which is only used in the cheapest and most expensive guitars, oddly enough) but somebody substituted ash or alder and EVH noticed it instantly. Unfortunately most of those stories aren't available unless you subscribe to said magazines.