My guitar collection - G&L

 
 

After the Climax “XL”, this Johnny McLaren Jr. designed Dinky-style guitar also has the rarer and mechanically more stable soft maple body finished in bowling ball Blue Swirl. And like the “XL” of the previous page, the Climax “plus” is the other early BBE-era “Superstrat” with a pickup combination not previously seen on the pre-BBE Invader. Even more, it is the first production G&L with an HSH configuration. It has 2 Gotoh HB Distortion humbuckers paired with an ST Classic Alpha single-coil pickup in the middle. The wiring harness has a CTS 250kΩ Audio Taper volume potentiometer with 200pF treble bleed capacitor, CTS 250kΩ Audio Taper tone pot in series with a 22,000pF (.022µF) cap to ground, and 5-position pickup selector. The Floyd Rose Tremolo System is also built by Gotoh Japan. The (still pre-BBE) hard-rock maple #3 neck has a 12” radius maple fingerboard, standard 1¾” width Floyd Rose locking nut, headstock with painted Black front, and G&L branded Schaller closed tuning machines. It just so happens the Climax “plus” is the subject of this post by Gabe Dellevigne on the Guitars by Leo website.

 

Climax “plus”

The story behind this guitar

Year:

Serial number:

Neck date:

Body date:

Strings:


I have to admit. The Climax “plus” is a bit of an afterthought. It has little to do with the Broadcaster or ASAT, it is an BBE-era instruments, and their reputation is not all too good. But informed by Gabe’s post referenced above and some emails, it became clear this instrument was holding up pretty well. No cracks in the finish around the neck joint. At least not yet. In addition, it is still a 3-bolt and the first G&L with an HSH pickup combination, a combination not present in the collection. It arrived in March 2019 in a crappy Fender thermoplastic case without a tremolo arm. The latter was easily fixed. The former was solved in the end by using a G&L branded soft case. Many are not big fans of the Gotoh pickups used in the Climax series. But especially at lower volumes, the combo of either of the humbuckers with the single-coil sounds very pleasing. Maybe it is just that my expectations were so low, given all the previous “dirt” collected, they are easily exceeded. At full throttle it is what one expects: loud. The neck feels comfortable. And yes, I still prefer a Kahler over a Floyd Rose unit, although it functions just as advertised.

The story behind this guitar

1993

G033136

JAN 29 1993

JAN 25 1993

D’Addario EXL120 Nickel Wound Super Light (9-42)