Wechter

Abraham Wechter met John McLaughlin when he worked as a designer for Gibson. There he created the multistring wonders that McLaughlin used with his group Shakti.

Later after breaking out on his own he also created a magnitude of fantastic nylon strung instruments for McL.

Around this time he and Jonas met. Talk about an acoustic Bass Guitar led to 5 years of design and building before the Roman Bass was finished.

This extraordinary instrument can be heard on  The Silent Life (DEM 026) The Word (Axiom) and the Ginger Baker record Middle Passage amongst other recordings.

Schack
In the 90’s Hellborg also endorsed German luthier Andy Schack. It started out with a 10 string instrument around 1990 then Andy also made him a 6 string acoustic Bass a few years later.

Ovation

Around 94 Jonas ran across Jimmy Page’s double neck ovation guitar in the Trace Elliot HQ in the UK
(trace was the Ovation distributor at the time) and just put in the request to have a double neck bass built on the same body. His call was heeded and 6 months later he was given probably the only double neck Ovation bass in existence.

Status

Hellborg endorsement of Trace Elliot amp in the early 90’s led to a chance meeting with Rob Green and the company Status. Together they developed 2 signature models. The 4 string electric Hellborg model and the 6 string electro acoustic seen here.

Vigier

In the late 90’s Jonas Hellborg decided to support Shawn Lane’s friend and supporter Patrice Vigier and for a while played his basses. Particularly a brass fretboarded “fretless”