My guitar collection - G&L

 
 

Look at this gorgeous, all mahogany beauty! An ASAT Deluxe with a chambered mahogany body, a mahogany cap (instead of figured maple), and mahogany neck (not hard-rock maple), all finished in Honey. It has a Saddle-Lock bridge, uncovered Seymour Duncan (SD) ’59 (SH-1N) neck humbucker, uncovered SD JB Trembucker (TB-4) in the bridge, and original ASAT Deluxe wiring harness, i.e. still using 250kΩ potentiometers and particular control layout. The fingerboard is ebony with a 12” radius and Dunlop (Medium) Jumbo 6100 frets while the bone nut is 1⅝” wide. Finally, the tuning machines are the standard G&L branded Schallers. For more information on the standard model, still currently in production, see this webpage:

https://glguitars.com/product/asat-deluxe-semi-hollow/.

 

ASAT Deluxe Semi-Hollow Mahogany

The story behind this guitar

Year:

Serial number:

Neck date:

Body date:

Strings:


Is this another in the series of mahogany guitars built in 2004-2005? Not sure. When bought at Dave’s Guitar Shop in La Crosse, WI, it originally came in a Fender thermoplastic case. Did someone keep the brown tolex case if it originally came in one? The presence of said tolex case would have been a dead giveaway it is part of that series. Now it is stored in a tolex hardshell case. Dave’s Guitar Shop original website listing did not mention it was chambered. That trait was easily detected by almost pulling a muscle while taking it out of its case. And what I though was a second error in the listing turned out to be my own folly. For an ebony fingerboard, it has a fair amount of pore structure and no streaks. So initially I mistook it to be rosewood. But its noticeably darker color and slick surface prove it to be ebony indeed. All this was confirmed by Memo Romero at the G&L factory, who relayed the guitar was completed on February 25, 2005. He also cleared up the enigma of the ‘WB’ in the neck pocket. The entry in the log indicates this guitar was supposed to have white binding but that demonstrably never happened. Of course the pups scream when you crank the controls. Although a bit tempered, most of the ASAT Deluxe aggression is still there. But that is not where this configuration sounds its most amazing. The sweet spot for this guitar is definitely at lower volumes where it become chime-y, with lots of clarity and bell-like overtones, competing strongly with any jazz box. No other ASAT Deluxe comes close, not even the Korina ASAT Deluxe prototype or ASAT Deluxe Semi-Hollow TV Jones prototype, both with many commonalities in configuration. Whatever its exact heritage, this is somewhat unexpectedly a great addition to the collection.

The story behind this guitar

2005

CLF35220

none, marked ‘ASAT DLX’, ‘242560’, ‘All Honey’

FEB 14 2005, marked ‘WB’

D’Addario EXL110 Nickel Wound Regular Light (10-46)