Remember the Hellecaster Fender guitars?

[PFDarkside]

About a year after I started playing I read an article about the Hellecasters and their new (at the time) signature Fenders. I thought they were super cool....

A few months ago this popped up on The Music Zoo. For a couple of minutes I was trying to find a way to buy them. Overall they were overpriced, but what a cool collection.

Anyway, it’s interesting when people put up collections of things you remember from years ago.

https://www.themusiczoo.com/product...john-jorgenson-signature-guitars-set-of-three

 

[jeremy]

Re: Remember the Hellecaster Fender guitars?

i remember those and thought they were awesome! also expensive and i was broke at the time. always thought it was interesting how the jd was basically a simple strat and the others were so fancy

 

[stevie_bees]

Re: Remember the Hellecaster Fender guitars?

I seem to remember that the JD Strat had a copper plate under the bridge pickup, and was moved very slightly from the normal position of a Strat.

 

[Zombiwoof]

Re: Remember the Hellecaster Fender guitars?

I have been wanting a split-pickup Stratocaster for a long time, I assume the pickups are similar to those used on the old Fender Electric XII. Humbucking, but still sound like single-coils. Why they don't have a stock Strat with that setup I don't know. I know G&L makes the Comanche, the pickups on that are a similar idea, and Fralin makes a couple of pickups with the staggered coils in a HB-sized casing. I think that pickup design is brilliant, they should follow through on that idea on a production Strat IMO.
Al

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: Remember the Hellecaster Fender guitars?

I like the blue one.

 

[Francois]

Re: Remember the Hellecaster Fender guitars?

I never saw such split pickup strat. The split pickup idea seems to come directly from the Electric XII... But oddly they reversed the order.
On the El. XII the split design is giving more bass on the lower end and more treble on the higher end:

 

[jeremy]

Re: Remember the Hellecaster Fender guitars?

I seem to remember that the JD Strat had a copper plate under the bridge pickup, and was moved very slightly from the normal position of a Strat.

it does look like the bridge pup is slightly further from the bridge now that you mention it

 

[LLL]

Re: Remember the Hellecaster Fender guitars?

The Hellecasters are awesome guitarists.

 

[RorySquier]

Re: Remember the Hellecaster Fender guitars?

They are a hell of a good guitar.



;>)/

 

[LLL]

Re: Remember the Hellecaster Fender guitars?

John Jorgenson, Will Ray, Jerry Donahue that is.

http://www.hellecasters.com/

Those are their signature guitars. Gory details here:

https://www.guitarfritz.com/3-fender-hellecasters/

 

[Evan Skopp]

Re: Remember the Hellecaster Fender guitars?

This was a fun project that I enjoyed working on. The guitars pictured in the first post were made by Fender Japan. There were another set of Custom Shop Guitars as well.

The Jerry Donahue bridge pickup did have a copper-plated steel plate on the bottom and was a pre-cursor to the Twangbanger. But there was also a steel plate countersunk into the underside of the pickguard that mimicked a Telecaster bridge plate. Also, one of the tone controls is actually a two-position rotary switch that allowed some great tones in addition to the standard five. The idea behind this guitar--and the Custom Shop version--is to get the best Strat and Tele sounds in the same guitar. For a while, SD offered that pickguard for sale, but it was very pricey.

I probably spent the most time on the Jorgenson. The inspiration was the G&L Comanche which, IIRC, was designed with input from John (for a short time, I had John's prototype Comanche at my house). But John had the idea to use a form factor that was more like the Fender Electric XII to give it more of a Fender-vibe. SD had to tool up for those covers which also made their way onto the Mustang bass and a Courtney Love-inspired guitar called the Vista or Venus, or something like that. For Jorgenson's USA Custom Shop guitar, he wanted double Tele pickups in the neck and bridge and SD didn't want to pay the tooling costs so they bowed out of that guitar and let FMIC pay the tooling (probably a smart move).

I wasn't involved with the Will Ray Jazz-o-caster pickups. That was done in the SD Custom Shop. The wildest thing about that guitar was the foil paint job and the b-bender. IMO, of the three Hellecasters, Will was the most "out there," and this guitar fit his personality.

Anyway, thanks for the trip down memory lane.

 

[jeremy]

Re: Remember the Hellecaster Fender guitars?

nice to see you around and thanks for the insight into the guitars.

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: Remember the Hellecaster Fender guitars?

Thanks for the info Frank!

 

[stevie_bees]

Re: Remember the Hellecaster Fender guitars?

Hey Evan, good to see you about and thanks for the info! Hope all is well with you. IIRC the Courtney Love guitar was a Squier Venus which was part of their Vista line of guitars that included the Super-Sonic.

 

[Amos DL]

HELP ME, PLEASE!

Very interesting and useful forum!

I'm trying to get a JJ style guitar built, my favorite guitarist.

The pickups on board the JJ Hellecaster are "Venus XII Pickups" STD or Custom?

Does anyone have the wiring diagram of the JJ Hellecaster?

Many many thanks for the help!
Amos​