Name: Steve Bloom
Hometown: New York, NY
Guitar: The Pinecaster P-90
Reader and NYC musician Steve Bloom wanted a pine-bodied Tele with P-90s and 4-way switching, so he built the Pinecaster.
With a yen for a pine-bodied 6-string with a diverse array of tones, Steve Bloom built a parts guitar that‘s more than the sum of its parts.
I'm a professional musician and have a guitar repair business called Harlem Fret Works here in Harlem, New York City. A client brought me two guitars to work on with pine bodies, and I was really impressed with the sound, so, of course, I wanted a guitar with that sound, too! I had never owned a guitar with P-90s. So, this guitar satisfies both of those things at the same time. It’s a Telecaster-style with a pine body and two Seymour Duncan Vintage Antiquity P-90 pickups.
Behold the Pinecaster: Note the upside-down left-handed guitar neck.
Wiring: 4-way switch, with series/parallel, push-pull tone control for out-of-phase tones. Reverse control plate with a Jazzmaster roller knob on the volume control, for a low-profile knob that you won’t hit when playing. I use a different wiring scheme for the 4-way switch, instead of the standard one. I feel this wiring is more intuitive when you’re playing live. Thanks to Breja Toneworks for figuring this out!
Position 1: bridge
Position 2: neck/bridge parallel
Position 3: neck/bridge series
Position 4: neck only
The volume dial on the Pinecaster’s reverse switch plate is a Jazzmaster roller knob.
I did a soldering trick to the neck P-90. I unsoldered the braided wire from the lug, shielded it, and added an extra ground wire to the lug. This was the only way to get the wiring capabilities listed above.
The neck is maple with a rosewood fretboard, and it's actually a Mighty Mite lefty that was given to me by one of my oldest friends. I had to put new side dots on the edge of the fretboard facing me. However, I do like the reverse headstock idea. I think it makes the high E string easier to bend. I needed to buy lefty Kluson-style tuners since I didn’t want to keep the Grovers that were on there. Just a bit too heavy. Luckily, the neck screw holes matched up perfectly. I sanded the neck heel just slightly to fit it to the neck pocket.
“That out-of-phase with the two P-90s is really cool—best funk tone out of a Tele I ever got!”
I bought the pine body on Etsy, and I did the finish: water-based stain from Wood Essence, with many coats of Birchwood Casey Tru-Oil over it. This is a great nontoxic finish that can be done at home. There are no toxic fumes like with nitrocellulose lacquer or polyurethane.
Steve added shielding to the cavities for the guitar’s two P-90s.
The sound? It was even better than I had hoped. Just amazing. That out-of-phase with the two P-90s is really cool—best funk tone out of a Tele I ever got! Also, the in-phase tones with these P-90s are wonderful. I have .011s with a wound G because I play many styles on gigs, and I like the chords to be in tune, and for some reason, .010s felt too slinky on this guitar. I really got lucky with this build; it came out great!
Keeley Octa Psi Transfigurating Fuzz Pedal with Polyphonic Pitch Shifting
Meet the OCTA PSI Transfigurating Fuzz – The Ultimate Combination of Pitch-Shifter, Octave Generator, and Tri-Voiced Analog Fuzz! Key features include: Instant Effect Order Switching, Flexible Output Configuration, Momentary or Latching Octave/Pitch, and more! Each pitch shift mode includes an up, down, and dual setting, resulting in 24 different modes.
Neil’s brother-in-law Billy’s Ovation, before Neil’s repairs.
Reader: Neil Crump
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Guitar: King of the Road
My brother-in-law passed away in March. He was a talented keyboardist and, in his heyday, played in bands that toured internationally. As a musician, he naturally had a guitar—a 1974 Ovation—and a “friend” put an unauthorized abstract paint job on it. That guitar had an extremely hard life: Its top was broken and the frets were completely worn out. As an aspiring luthier, I took the guitar to repair it then pass it on to his daughter. This proved to be a challenging task as I had never done anything more complicated than a basic setup before and I had few luthier tools.
A heat gun and thin spatula knife worked fine to remove the top and the bridge. I did my best to glue the new top halves together—but that left a visible seam, so I put a herringbone center strip over it (to match the purfling I would install later). I had no radius board, so I just clamped the pre-radiused braces I bought and was quite pleased that the new top did have a radius! Once I felt the bridge was sanded perfectly, I glued it down. I then replaced the plastic nut and saddle with bone. A hot soldering iron got the old frets out without damaging the fingerboard. (That said, next time I will clean those slots out better before installing new frets!)
“This proved to be a challenging task as I had never done anything more complicated than a basic setup before and I had few luthier tools.”
I was happy with my progress until I started routing the purfling channel. I had no workbench, and the concave Ovation body made things a bit awkward. While basically “bear hugging” the body with one arm and holding the router with the other, I heard a faint “pop.” The edge of an X-brace had come loose. I was able to squirt glue into the void with a syringe, but the concave guitar body made a brace jack useless (without fabricating a complicated caul). I removed the phono jack and jammed a pencil into the brace, keeping pressure on it with a rubber band. It worked!
Neil gave the Ovation a new lease on life with his extensive repairs, the end result of which can be seen here.
I also learned the importance of channel depth with purfling—I did lots of scraping to get everything flush. I am pleased with the finished product and my niece is so happy! I also put a new label inside the guitar body, with a dedication to her father on it.
Overall, there are multiple wins on this project. I gave tribute to my brother-in-law, made his daughter happy, and learned enough to build a guitar from scratch.
Two horns? It must be a Bison!
It makes me think about an old childhood friend who lived up the street from me. Jerry and his parents lived in an old house on their grandparents’ large plot of land. On one part of the land there was an old orchard filled with all types of fruit trees and pines, and I remember how we would climb to the top of the pines and just roll ourselves down the side, Revenant style! If you fell the right way, the branches would kind of gently let you down to the next, but if you hit it wrong and got in between the branches, you’d be wrecked. It’s like we enjoyed getting hurt, and, of course, when you’re young, you can snap right back. Ah, the days when pain really didn’t hurt. Now I wake up with injuries, for real.
“The action was way high and the fret ends were sharp. It was basically a painful affair.”
So why am I talking about my click-and-stick movie and stupid childhood escapades? Well, let’s get back to memories of my old friend Jerry. First, the house he lived in was so old that it had real wooden siding, but it hadn’t been painted in forever so the exterior took on a worn, faded, haunted house vibe. Second, his carpet was so tattered that it was being held together with duct tape. Lastly, I remember his dad had a cool, old electric guitar in the living room. His dad would let me play it sometimes, and I remember that it actually hurt to play! The action was way high and the fret ends were sharp. It was basically a painful affair. Not falling-out-of-a-tree painful, but as bad as it comes with guitars. It had the label “Conrad,” and young Frank didn’t realize that he’d be looking for that guitar again one day. I mean, it did have four pickups and lots of knobs and switches!
Made at the old Japanese Matsumoko factory in the ’60s, this Conrad Bison 1233 has four pickups and a 27" scale.
Years later, I would discover that his was a Conrad Bison guitar. The model came in a few different configurations, but the four-pickup design was designated as the 1233. Primarily featuring a lovely sunburst, these Bisons were made at the amazing old Matsumoku factory in Japan and were imported by the David Wexler Company that was based in Chicago. Matsumoku always had a good supply of aged wood, and many of the guitars made there are resonant and built well. The Bisons first appeared around 1966 and had a rather good run into the early ’70s.
Simple volume/tone knobs are paired with preset solo/rhythm switches that power alnico magnets. There’s an on/off switch for each pickup, and the sound really covers all the bases. Thumpy lows and crisp highs are all there. And, the pickups handle fuzz and distortion with ease. The Bisons also came in one- and two-pickup configurations with a normal scale, but the four-pickup ones have a longer, 27" scale, which is common for Matsumoku-made electrics.
So there it is: pain, survival, American frontier, Bison, haunted houses. It all sticks together like a duct-taped carpet. Click and stick, baby!