Brad Gillis Fernandes guitar

[dr. evil]

Newbie here, i bought this guitar from a good friend. can you guys share some infos regarding this guitar. it will be very much appreciated thanks.

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b39/spinashkennels/1009936mt8.jpg

[dr. evil]

bump

[Drew68]

Thought I'd help you out but I can't find anything on this particular guitar. I even looked for it over on Harmony Central where they have user reviews on everything and I came up empty handed. I do know that Fernandes was making Japanese Fenders for a while (maybe still are) and were well regarded for their craftsmanship.

Looks like a reasonably close copy of Gillis' heavily-modified '62 Strat. What I know about Gillis' guitar was that it had a special wireless unit installed under the pickguard with the normal input jack replaced with an on/off switch and a red light. It had a standard input jack wired into the side of the guitar. It had a custom Floyd Rose with no fine tuners. Don't know if your Fernandes has all of these appointments. Looks like a cool guitar though!

That's about it. Maybe someone else will chime in.

[Grenville]

I think you will find that Greco then Tokai made the Japanese Fenders (the official ones).

Fernandes made copies, of course, and at one stage the 'Fernandes' script looked very similar to 'Fender'. Something must have been said, because the blockish font became the one soon after.

I did have a Fernandes catalog back in the 80s with this guitar in it and even then the copying was quite fastidious, with many different price points and points of detail. To my untrained (at the time) eyes I had no idea why you would need 15 variations of a sunburst strat.

MEANWHILE... here is a link to the catalog for your guitar (you will need to register and sign in):
http://www.vintaxe.com/catalogs_japanese_fernandes_bradwillis_1985.htm

[Trandy]

Contact "Big Mike"....he's a mod here...and he has one of those guitars.

[vintage27guitar]

Must be very early eighties - Kramers - Charvels - Esp - Tokai and others got away with using that same fender headstock until the early eighties.

[Soapbarstrat]

I think it's mid-80's. I think the smaller run of the Gillis model had an exact Fender shaped headstock (like yours) and the larger run (less collectable) had the modded ball end headstock (modded to not be a complete ball end)
I'm not an expert on the Gillis Fernandes models, but I think it's safe to say the guitar should be hands off to hack modding.

[Todd Lynch]

Gillis' red Strat was my fave among the various 'heavy' player's guitars during the early/mid-80's.

[vintage27guitar]

I think his main red strat - even though heavy modified - is a 62.

[big mike]

Yup. Very cool. Mine is actually a proto for the US Sig versoin that never was. Mahogany and maple body, and the regular Fernandes headstock.

Mine came directly from Brad. GREAT guitars. I'm a huge fan of fernandes.

http://homepage.mac.com/big_mike/.Pictures/untitled%20folder/Fernandes.jpg

[big mike]

Yours looks like it has the built in Nady wireless and PJ Marx pickups. Very cool. Mine was a sustainer version, so no nady and when I got it had a dead PJ marx, a van zandt, and I forget what in the bridge.

[Trandy]

Yours looks like it has the built in Nady wireless and PJ Marx pickups. Very cool. Mine was a sustainer version, so no nady and when I got it had a dead PJ marx, a van zandt, and I forget what in the bridge.

What the heck ever happened to PJ anyway?

I used to see him at the NAMM shows then he dropped off the face of the earth it seems.

[big mike]

What the heck ever happened to PJ anyway?

I used to see him at the NAMM shows then he dropped off the face of the earth it seems.


Wish I knew. I'd love to have a Schon pickup. (basically a hot 812). He made some interesting stuff.

[daddyo]

That would be a cool guitar to have for private moments.

[Nelly]

What's the deal with no fine tuners? Every guitar with a Floyd I've played would go out of tune when the locking nut was tightened.

[Cody]

What's the deal with no fine tuners? Every guitar with a Floyd I've played would go out of tune when the locking nut was tightened.
Back in the day, I had one of the original Floyds without fine tuners. You had to learn and anticipate what tightening the nut would do to the pitch of each string - for instance, tuning the high E a bit sharp and the B a bit flat.

It took some trial and error, but back then I definitely felt it was worth the effort.

[tim gueguen]

Alex Lifeson had early non-fine tuner Floyds on the Strats he used in the early '80s, and went without locking nuts to avoid any such problems.

I think Gibson bought the PJ Marx trademark in the mid-late '80s.

[digital jams]

Formite Stratotone also has one and is a huge Gillis fan, I believe that his may have been owned by Gillis at one point, could be wrong.

Killer shredder score!

[stratotone]

I got mine from Brad's tech. Have some pics somewhere of Brad playing it, pics of it with his 'real' one, and my back plate is signed by him too.

Mine doesn't have brad's name on it anywhere, I think it's a prototype. It also has two input jacks - the one on the front that has a booster/preamp, and another one on the bottom side of the body. Very weird.

Also came with a black fernandes floyd style bridge without fine tuners and was also a single locking trem! I replaced it with a real floyd from the early 80s without the fine tuners. Thing stays in tune well and plays great, I always use it for Night Ranger tunes my cover bands play.

One tip on this guitar if you don't have a double locking floyd - screw your string retainer behind the floyd WAY down. This keeps pressure on the floyd locknut, so when you tighten it you don't go way out of tune. Another interesting thing is that on the non fine tuner floyds, you can really yank them all over the place pitchwise, because it doesn't have the longer bolts on the back. I can pull up nearly 6 frets on the G string with it, and the string height is very low and it is non recessed.

http://members.cox.net/okstrat/bradgillisstrat3.jpg

[stratotone]

Big Mike, what's your headstock look like? I've seen about a half dozen of these guitars, yours has a few differences that are pretty interesting:

1) floyd backrout behind the trem
2) no pickup ring on the humbucker
3) the trem, for that matter - all I've seen were like mine stock - single locking non fine tuner 'copy' of brad's old floyd in black
4) the sustainer

I'm going to guess yours is a bit newer than mine - the routing on the floyd wasn't very common at all, and I don't remember the sustainer really being out there until Kramer had em in what, '87 or so?

Dr.Evil's looks to have fine tuners, so I'd guess mine is oldest, then his, then yours. Any ideas on different versions of these? Maybe mine with the single locker was a student model or something!

Pete

[stratotone]

bump, lets see some more pics!

[dr. evil]

thanks for the info guys..sorry for the delayed reply...here some more pix of my guitar. thanks.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/sp1n22/IMG_2957.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/sp1n22/IMG_2955.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/sp1n22/IMG_2953.jpg