Eastman SB55/v
Inspired by the Gibson Les Paul Junior – and a great song by Tom Waits – Eastman’s SB55 is a tribute to a 66-year-old guitar that just refuses to retire
Spend any time with Eastman designer Pepijn ‘t Hart and you can’t help but be inspired: his enthusiasm for the electric guitar is quite infectious. And it’s that very enthusiasm that has driven a batch of Eastman designs that certainly deviate from the company’s archtop heritage, creating almost time-capsule visions – and very heartfelt tributes – to the glorious past of the instrument’s formative years. The latest, and possibly last, in this series is the SB55/v and its double-cut stablemate, the SB55DC/v.
But while the Gibson Les Paul Junior certainly has its fans, in both styles, singlepickup guitars remain pretty niche. The first this writer knew of the project was when Pepijn mentioned the idea and before long we were swapping Junior stories, specs and dimensions.
“One of the things was that I thought it was a guitar we could do really well,” says Pepijn from his Netherlands base.
“In the beginning it started out as either a [two-pickup] Special or single-pickup Junior. We were never going to do the double-cutaway style. And then I spoke to you and a friend of mine who has a collection of around 20 Juniors from the 50s. I mean, it’s the Telecaster of Gibson! We wanted to do something like that, really make a very simple but high-quality guitar. It felt like a very natural thing for us to do based on the body shape that I’d started with the SB59. Of course, it will never look as original as the original…
“The thing I was really interested in with the Junior was not so much the shape but correcting some of the flaws in the original design,” Pepijn continues. “For instance, the intonation with the original bridge: some were great, some were off. That’s why people have put all different sorts of bridges on their Juniors, like the [Leo Quan] Badass. Plenty of people, including Gibson, still make this Junior style with a bridge that isn’t compensated,” or that has adjustable saddles, for example.
Eastman makes its guitars in Beijing and importing parts from the USA to China is very expensive, as Pepijn explains: “I ran into Gottfried Schmid from Faber and he showed me his compensated wrapover. But another thing I don’t like about the original bridge is that it can fall over, tip forward, as the string wants to pull it more or less off the studs. That can mean the contact between the studs and the bridge is not always as good as it can be. Faber has a very simple solution in their Tone Lock locking studs.”
If these key hardware appointments were relatively easily, following the original ingredients of the Junior, as we discuss in our review, is next to impossible today.
“Well, it uses probably the best wood in the world, ever,” laughs Pepijn. “But in this day and age we specifically chose okoume; we wanted the guitar to be resonant and light. And we did a lot of comparisons.
“We were trying to find a way to add to the original concept… a ’58 Junior literally showed us the way” Pepijn ‘t Hart
With the mahogany that we use at Eastman it was like five were okay in terms of weight and five were just too heavy, and a too-heavy Junior is the last thing that you want, right? The okoume is a little brighter and has a little bit more edge to it than the mahogany, but in the end when we had to make the decision I said I’d rather have the okoume so it’s resonant and ringing.”
Parts and materials are one thing but capturing that time-capsule vibe, the accurate colouration and the cared for but aged look were very much a part of this project for Eastman.
“I really don’t think there is any guitar factory in the world where the similarity between the way Gibsons were built in the 50s and the way we are building now is so
apparent. The lack of [CNC] machinery… And also, as with the SB55/v you have there for review, the colouring. If we couldn’t have done the colour right, I don’t know, I think I might have stopped the project. But I think they did it so well: the warmth of the yellow in that sunburst. That is the uniqueness of our craftsmen. I mean, they’ve never seen an old Gibson Les Paul Junior. So I brought dozens of vintage guitar magazines to show them.”
Pepijn was also “trying to find a way to add to the original concept”, in terms of its sounds. “We had a couple of different ideas ranging from a Broadcaster-type circuit to a five-way [pickup selector] switch. And when I called you, you mentioned that simple circuit on Yamaha’s Revstar [the Dry Switch]. But then one my friend’s guitars, a 1958 Junior, literally showed us the way. It doesn’t have a particularly high output
– I originally thought when I started the project I’d need a high-output pickup so
“If only I could get that custom shop level but at £1,200 to £1,300: that’s what we’ve tried to do” Pepijn ‘t Hart
that when you pulled the volume back and then the tone it still would sound good. But I felt this medium output of that ’58 had the best musicality to it. So that’s how we settled on the lower wind 50s Lollar P-90.
“And then we started playing with the No-Load tone control. As you know, when you plug in and turn it to 10 you’re scared because there’s so much bite. You think, ‘What the heck is going on here?’ So I’ve said to the luthiers who set up our guitars before they go to dealers, ‘Keep the tone control off the 10 because you only use it when you need – to go to 11!’ That’s when you turn it up full, especially if you have a nice distortion or overdrive pedal.”
But despite the simplicity of the original design, Juniors – like so many vintage guitars out there – have an uncanny habit of sounding quite different.
“All the Juniors I played had their own thing going on,” confirms Pepijn. “Some were almost jazzy, some were more bite-y but that 1958 one, I suspect, is pretty close to the one you have.”
Fans and aficionados also have their favourites between the earlier single-cut design and the later double-cut. What’s Pepijn’s take?
“I always think there’s a little more aggression to the sound of the double-cuts and maybe it’s less versatile but it’s a very small difference – just a little less wood. Visually, I think I prefer the double-cut: that with the tortoiseshell pickguard I’m just a sucker for. But sound wise, I don’t think a single-cut can be beaten.”
As we mentioned in our introduction here, the SB55 might well be the last of Eastman’s solidbody vintage tributes.
“Next year we will start shaking things up with our new own-design solidbodies. From now on it’s going to be different. There’s going to be an offset one… a lot of interesting instruments. You see, we get asked, for example, ‘Why don’t you do an Eastman version of the SG?’ But I don’t want to do that, I don’t feel there’s anything we can add. So we’ve started to design a completely new instrument. For example, we did Romeo, which is a completely new design compared with anything out there.
“I think this is going to be the last solidbody we do that is closely based on an original. The SB59 was the first one that we did and the SB55 is just a guitar I always wanted to do. A lot of players – not the metal shredders, perhaps – want a Junior-style guitar that they might use for a few songs. The trouble is the best ones are at a custom shop level and they can be prohibitive because of their price. So a lot of what I do comes from a personal wish: if only I could get that custom shop level but at a £1,200 to £1,300 price point. That’s what we’ve tried to do.”
Oh, and why is it called the SB55? “Very simple,” answers Pepijn. “We already had the limited run of the SB54, which is what I’d originally wanted to call this guitar as it was the first year of the Junior. But that was already taken. We didn’t want to go to SB53 so we made it the SB55: it had the right ring to it and I love that Tom Waits song Ol’ 55. We never try to be too specific – we’re paying tribute after all.”