Charvel Guthrie Govan HSH

first play
CHARVEL GUTHRIE GOVAN SIGNATURE
18
Guitarist october 2017
have a bit more character, at least tonally. The
body is two-piece, centred joined ‘caramelized’
ash (yet another word for torrefied timber),
which with its thin lacquer finish shows off the
bold wavy-striped grain. It doesn’t appear to be
grain filled and is hugely textured.
The similarly caramelized maple neck has
a bold striped figure on the back that’s only
slightly milder on the separate fingerboard.
It certainly adopts a thin depth flat ‘C’ and if
the spec sheet didn’t tell is it was coated with a
hand-rubbed urethane gel we’d suspect it was
oiled. Under that fingerboard, however, are
dual graphite rods – to increase stability – and,
of course, there’s a two-way adjustable truss
rod with body-end wheel adjustment.
The fingerboard face has a compound radius,
24 big stainless steel frets and clear contrasting
position dots and Luminlay luminous side
dots. The neck is extremely tight-fitting and
held in place with four screws, each recessed
into the contoured heel.
The bridge, initially, looks like an early Floyd
Rose (without fine tuners) but is a USA-made
Charvel design that centres around a thick
brass inertia block, steel top plate and large
saddles into which the strings are locked via
those long Allen key bolts; once intonation is
set each saddle is firmly locked in place. It’s
back routed too and the whole unit is recessed
into the body so the top of the bridge plate is
flush with the top of the body. A Tremol-No
is fitted so you can prevent upbend, lock it in
place as a fixed bridge or, as supplied, just use
it as a free floating vibrato with a huge range
from floppy to an upbend of approximately a
fourth on the G string (it’ll go a bit higher but
we stopped there).
Perhaps surprisingly a typical locking nut is
replaced with a classic bone nut and Sperzel
locking tuner,yet even straight out of the case
the tuning stability was hugely impressive, not
least with that wide range. Even the stainless
steel arm has been ‘tuned’: it’s a tight push fit
into a plastic collar (with tension adjustment)
but with zero free play.
Matching the caramel colour are the centre
single coil’s cover and bobbin tops of the
uncovered neck and bridge humbuckers –
which are firmed screwed to the body with
no intended height adjustment; the middle
single coil has a little more movement but not
by much.
Like any HSH set up you have huge choice
on exactly how you wire it – this is no different.
While the outer positions select the full
1. Inside the neck are
dual graphite rods for
extra stability. The
‘super jumbo’ frets are
stainless steel while the
side dots are luminous
by Luminlay
2. This ‘secret’ switch
activates a passive fi lter
for the humbuckers,
creating a surprisingly
single coil-like voice
that’s still hum-
cancelling. All it takes is
a simple capacitor!
3. Nicely contoured at
the heel with inset
neck screws, combined
with the rear cutaway
contour top fret access
is a breeze.
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GIT425.rev_charv.indd 18 07/09/2017 12:52