Patrick James Eggle Oz with Cream T Original Banger

Don’t read this or look at these pictures unless your credit card is already cut into pieces. This latest tie-up between the craft of Patrick James Eggle and Cream T’s Thomas Nilsen is quite possibly the coolest guitar of 2020.

Cream T’s collaboration with Billy F Gibbons is well known, as is BFG’s penchant for single-pickup Esquirestyle axes made, notably, by John Bolin. That’s the broad recipe here. The Oz is Patrick’s T-style design and this very rock ’n’ roll example marries a slab alder body with a fabulously figured and quarter-sawn 648mm (25.5-inch) scale length roasted maple neck. The gloss gold top has some dramatic cracks across the finish, another example of the ‘’58 formula’ nitro finish that Patrick has been using for some time now, aged-looking like the hardware yet with no false dings or wear.

But what’s going on with that pickup? BFG fans will have seen this prototype-style pickup on numerous guitars from a little over a decade ago. “Its draw for us was finding out Thomas had figured out a way of using the ‘Gibson’ gauge wire, 42AWG, halfway wrapped the bobbin [then] married to a ‘Fender’ 43AWG to complete the wrap,” said Billy Gibbons at the time. “So you get the richness that Gibson provides – that warm tone – but you’re not lacking that upper edge thing that Fender is famous for. He has managed to marry the two and the outcome is a powerful pickup that has got such a full range of performances. Over the top.”

With its fibreboard top and red vinyl tape, the Original Banger is certainly, well, original. Aside from the unusual coil configuration, the visible polepieces are the only ones in the coils, and you’ll note that they are laid out in the opposite way to a Fender Wide range with the bass-side poles closest to the bridge.

“For me, it was less about ZZ Top, but when you see Billy play this style of guitar the tone is unbelievable,” says Sound Affects’ Tim Lobley who commissioned an initial run of three instruments. “As simple as possible, aiming for a phenomenal tone from a simple instrument.”

The steely and resonant acoustic response is lapped up by the Original Banger to produce a voice that really does seem to mix the bite of a Tele with more width. And if you can’t afford the guitar, you can now buy the Cream T Original Banger for £169, or £299 for a set.

Cream T’s latest pickup is actually based on one of the first that Thomas designed with Billy Gibbons around 2007. Thomas says: “It was actually Billy’s idea. ‘Hey, what if you used these different gauges of wire?’ he said. I said okay and worked out how to do it. Billy also wanted the poles slanted in that way to get that sort of Hendrix reverse thing with the bass side closer to the bridge” 2. The alder back looks more like old mahogany, a colouration achieved by oxidising the wood with potassium permanganate. “It was one of the few things I learned at the London School of Furniture when I was 18,” laughs Patrick 3

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3. There are more subtle cracks in the nitro finish on the face and back of the headstock, although the neck back is bare and oiled for a typical PJE super-smooth finish. Fretwork and setup are what you’d expect: faultless. It plays superbly with a great weight of 3.35kg (7.37lb) 4. “That’s the ageing lacquer, so it’s been in the freezer and it will crack more as time goes on – that’s the idea. We now use it on pretty much half of our guitars, the more vintage-style,” says Patrick 5. This original P-Bassstyle control plate (aged, of course) and the single-ply cream scratchplate mimic those on the numerous similar-style Billy Gibbons guitars. The simple volume and tone circuit use a treble-bleed circuit and NOS Russian K42Y-2 500V 0.033 microfarads paperin-oil capacitor 6. Another popular ‘boutique’ twist is the cut-off Tele-style bridge with throughbody stringing. This one is made by Kluson and uses Wilkinson compensated brass saddles treated with a cold patination fluid to create the old, used look 4 6 5