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Toppscore - I noticed no one ever did answer this one for you.

The Burton Tele was basically a hard-tailed Strat Plus Deluxe with a Tele body - in other words it had 3 Strat-sized Lace Sensors (blue logo neck position, silver logo middle position, and red logo bridge position) like a Strat Plus Deluxe. It had the hard-tail bridge like a first version Tele Plus, no pickguard, and I believe it had a poplar body originally and a 21-fret maple board neck. The original colors were black with blue paisleys, black with red paisleys, and metallic red. The two paisely finishes had gold hardware, the metallic red had black hardware. The Lace Sensors had black covers.

The guitar is still around - it now has unmarked pickups described as "specially designed James Burton pickups" that I read somewhere (maybe on the TDPRI) that they are unmarked Lace Sensors (same blue/silver/red set as they used to be) but I have also read that they are like old Bill Lawrence pickups as well - I don't know which is true. They have moved to a basswood body, and they now only come in "blue paisley flames" and "red paisley flames" finishes with gold hardware - it's easier to show one than describe it (photo from the Fender site):



To picture an original version of the Burton just remove the "flame" part from the top of the current one - the paisley part covered the entire front of the guitar but the rest of it was black. Also note that these still use the 1980s-style Fender logo with the serial number on the front of the headstock.

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1. YES you can put the Jimi Hendrix set into any Strat, righty or southpaw flipped upside down, without problem!

2. Your Warmoth guitar is a superstrat. The True Coil matches perfectly the two DiMarzio humbuckers in the bridge and neck positions!

Since the True Coil is a stacked humbucker it can also be splitted and tapped (front coil of bridge pickup+rear coil of middle pickup in position 2, front coil of middle pickup+rear coil of neck pickup in position 4).

In such case your guitar is more an HHH axe than an HSH.

If you have questions about wiring schematics, ask our pickup wiring gurus Andy and Martian for further details.

Tip: For more tonal flexibility install a push-pull pot in the master volume knob to split the DiMarzios and a 3-way mini toggle for the True Coil.

Thanks. I appreciate it. Guitar Fetish's responses follow.
I will take your instructions to my guitar guy, but I am not understanding how the middle
single coil becomes a humbucker. Because it is stacked? Maybe I should not use the term
"single coil". I have a guitar with three Seymour Duncan Hot Rail humbuckers that are
single coil size and are humbuckers, but Guitar Fetish does not call the TC120 a humbucker
or a single coil.

"This is for the 12k GFS True Coil. This is our hottest True Coil- And should match the output and power of a 9K single coil pickup and is a great match for humbuckers. True-Coils use an old-school vintage style single coil pickup mated to an under-wound coil that is strategically placed to retain ALL of the vintage warmth, body and clarity while reducing almost all of the 60 cycle hum. We use old school fiber bobbins, Formvar wire, sand-cast Alnico V magnets and the whole assembly is shielded with copper and then individually wax potted for squeal free performance."


Question to Guitar Fetish:
Hello. I am going to purchase two complete sets. I purchased a Left Handed Fender Stratocaster. I want to install your "Jimi" Reverse Stagger Alnico Premium Pickup Set into the Left Handed Strat, then Flip the Strat to become a right handed player Strat, then reverse the strings. Will these pickups work the intended way when the guitar is flipped and then the strings reversed?
Guitar Fetish response:
Yes, that is how you want to use these.


Question to Guitar Fetish:
Item ID: TC120 * This is for the 12k GFS True Coil. This is our hottest True Coil- And should match the output and power of a 9K single coil pickup and is a great match for humbuckers. I purchased a Stratocaster clone guitar that has an HSH configuration. The bridge pickup is a Dimarzio Super 3 Distortion and the neck pickup is a Dimarzio Humbucker From Hell. I would like to purchase your TC120 12k GFS True Coil pickup and put it in the vacant middle single coil hole (you will see in the picture). My question is, will your GFS 12k TC120 be too strong and too overpowering working with the two Dimarzio humbuckers? Or, is the TC120 designed to fit in with the two humbuckers?
Guitar Fetish response:
The 12k true coil will be perfect for this. The Super 3 is a VERY hot pickup and will definitely not overpower the 12k true coil. Really, a perfect application for this pickup. Should make for a nice combination/sound. Let me know if you need anything else.

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The True Coil is a noiseless pickup. Noiseless pickups are stacked humbuckers.

It's strongly advisable to send an e-mail to GFS about possible coil tap and split abilities, I'm pretty sure the TC120 can be tapped and splitted.

I have a custom-made Strat clone with two Seymour Duncan Classic Stacks and a '59 Trembucker. The guitar had three mini toggle switches for coil tap/split affecting all the pickups.



Since your guitar has such features and a locking tremolo, it should be considered as a superstrat than a regular Stratocaster. Superstrats have sleeker cutaways and lack off pickguards (there are exceptions, many Ibanez superstrats such as the RGs, JEMs and 7-string Universes sport a pickguard). Also, they feature slender necks with a flatter fingerboard radius and 24 jumbo frets which are necessary for shredding. Some custom superstrats came with 36 frets.

ChromeFace. I hear the term "noiseless" pickups quite a bit.
Are you saying ALL noiseless pickups are "stacked humbuckers".
If so, good to know. Thank you. PLMK.

I emailed the questiion to Guitar Fetish. Will share the answer tomorrow.

Good to know the Term "Super Stratocaster"
I just purchased the 30-Fret Ibanez "RG" guitar pictured a couple of comments earlier
within this thread. You call it a "Super Strat". The horns look pretty pointed.
Heard or know of any positive or negative reviews regarding the Ibanez "RG" series?
What do you know about the Ibanez RG2011-SC?

Mu guess is the part number is:
"RG" = Ibanez product line
"2011" the year of the guitar's special run
"SC" = Super Cutaway (just guessing)

http://www.ibanez.com/ElectricGuitars/model-RG2011SC

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The 30-fret RG and your Warmoth custom build are superstrats.

For more information about superstrats check this wikipedia link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstrat

Kindest regards,

John

Holy Cow!!! I did not know SuperStrat was an actual genre. Very exciting.
I discovered several Fender 1980s/1990s/2000s Strat guitar models I never knew existed!

Plus, the comparisons to Charvel and Jackson, both of whom Fender purchased.
Also, I did not know that Jackson was the force behind the highly modified
Strat-type market in the 1980s. The Glam Rockers of the 1980s/1990s is when
I became alive to my own "bar-scene" music, rather than my parents. All I knew were
Glam & Hard Rockers and the End of the "Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Moody Blues" eras
and the beginning of the decline of the Rolling Stones' greatness.

Van Halen, Sammy Hagar, MTV Rock Videos, Springsteen, Prince, Police, AC/DC, Motley, Dio, U2
Motorhead, Dire Straits, Bon Jovi, Metallica, Guns/Roses, Iron Maiden, Megadeath, Judas Priest
. . . . gotta love those rockers - hahaha

Nowadays, it's the blues, classic rock, originals and speed scale shredding

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Grover started the superstrat trend and many others followed: Kramer, Hamer, Aria, Ibanez, Yamaha and ESP, to name a few. Fender responded with the Showmaster series, introduced in 1998.

Learning something everyday.
There must have been five different Fender Super Strats.
Is Fender producing any SuperStrats?

I like the Fender SuperStrats with 24 frets.
Guess you know I like "different". Toppscore

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Yes, later Showmasters (such as this beautiful Showmaster Blackout in Atlantic Blue Metallic shown below) came with 2-octave fretboards. These models came from the Cort factory in Korea.



The Showmaster Elite features a Tele-shaped headstock and a 22-fret ebony fingerboard with "tribal sun" inlays. This Custom Shop masterpiece sports a spalted maple top and dual Seymour Duncan humbucking pickups.



There were also Squier versions with a variety of bridges & pickup configurations and reverse headstocks, including a Jason Ellis signature model among others. These guitars were formerly known as Stagemasters.



Fender discontinued the Showmasters and their Squier variants in 2009.

I'm thinking of putting a blue single and red/red dually in my mim tele ala Johnny Greenwood from Radiohead.
I understand how some people think they look a little '80s tacky.

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Rated "M" for meaty.

Actually Charvel and Jackson have pretty much always been the same company - Wayne Charvel started his shop probably back in the 1960s, and started making parts in the 1970s (things like metal replacement jack plates for Les Pauls, stuff like that). He wound up taking investment funds from the same company that was also bankrolling Schecter (and some other company that made PA enclosures) in the middle 1970s. They were pushing Wayne to buy more equipment on credit (from them), which he eventually did. By about 1978 Wayne had had enough.

Grover Jackson had been a rep for Anvil Cases (I think it was Anvil but it could have been another flight case company) but wanted to learn the building business. He had come on board with Wayne in about 1977. At some point Wayne couldn't pay Grover, so he said he would work for a percentage of the company. When Wayne wanted out, Grover managed to parly his share of the company plus a bank loan to cover Wayne's debts to the original financial backers so Grover bought him out. So Grover Jackson owned Charvel. Now regardless of what you read Wayne never really made his own parts in his shop even though he owned pin routers - he did make a bunch of bodies but he went from his place over to Schecter's place and cut 75-100 raw bodies over a weekend. Dave Schecter made Wayne a template that was slightly different than the one he used for his own stuff. Ed Van Halen's original body was one of that batch that Wayne cut using Schecter's machinery, but Wayne had never made a neck (EVH's neck came from Boogie Bodies, which is now Warmoth). All that happened after Grover bought out Wayne.

Jackson-branded guitars start when Randy Rhoads came to Grover wanting a set-neck guitar; Grover made him that white shark-fin neck-through "Concorde" guitar but didn't want to mess up the good thing he had going with the Charvel-branded bolt neck guitars, so he put his own name on the neck-through guitars. From 1981 until 1986 it was one company called "Charvel/Jackson"; "Charvel" was their bolt-on line and "Jackson" was their neck through line. By 1985-86 Grover wanted to expand to keep up with market demand, so he took on financial backers; at that point the company name changed to "Jackson/Charvel" and they applied the "Charvel" brand to a line of MIJ guitars and kept the "Jackson" name for all their USA models (both bolt-ons and neck-throughs). Jackson himself left about 1990; that was when they started having imported Jacksons and moved the Charvels to more of the low-end before discontinuing them. Jackson/Charvel had at least two owners (Grover's original partners out of Ft. Worth TX and later a Japanese firm) before Fender bought them out.

If this glam/hair metal side of the "guitar hot rod" history isn't twisted enough for you, you should try following the "fancy wood" side that really starts with Schecter.

@John C

Don't forget to mention the Charvettes!





There were exceptions.

Models 5 and 6 employed a neck-thru construction and sported active electronics.

Model 6 was an import version of the Soloist.



The rest of the series (1, 2 3 and 4) were bolt-ons while Models 7 and 8 were based on the familiar designs of Telecaster and Stratocaster respectively. Both guitars featured a reverse droopy headstock.