Eastman T486B Thinline Archtop Electric Vintage Red

The Eastman T486B Thinline is an excellent take on the classic semi-hollow design introduced by Ted McCarty, president of Gibson, with the 1958 ES-335.

Like most other versions of this design, the Eastman T486B uses pressed Maple Laminate for the top, back and sides, with a Maple block running down the center of the body. The top has a pair of F holes, and here they are bound. On the Eastman, the neck is Maple with a bound Ebony fingerboard sporting Split Block Parallelogram inlays (similar to an ES-345).

For hardware, the Eastman T486B features Kluson Deluxe style tuners, which aid in keeping the headstock weight down, aiding balance. A Licensed Bigsby True Vibrato B7 dual roller tailpiece is paired with a traditional Tune-o-Matic style bridge. Electronics start with standard Gibson style wiring, but this guitar uses a pair of Seymour Duncan Phat Cat humbucker sized P-90 style pickups.

This is an excellent instrument, well made and well designed.   It plays well, and sounds great.

The Eastman T486B is sold with its original hard shell case.

Seymour Duncan’s description of the Phat Cat pickup:

“Want the focused mid bite and unique attack of a P-90, but have an instrument routed for humbuckers? You need a humbucker sized P90 Phat Cat Set. The Phat Cat is a true single-coil P90 Soapbar retrofitted under a humbucker cover for use in humbucker-equipped guitars. We originally developed this pickup in the Seymour Duncan Custom Shop for Hamer Guitars, but eventually the demand became so great that we moved it to regular production.

The Phat Cats give you all the authentic grit and growl that you’d expect from a great vintage P90 Soapbar in the bridge position, and the authentic P90 bounce and sparkle in the neck position. Chords have bright, ringing harmonic overtones while solos have that classic P90 cut and edge. We use two Alnico 2 bar magnets to give you more sustain and a compressed attack, while the metal covers provide more shielding and noise reduction than standard soapbar covers.

Other appointments include a nickel silver bottom plate, single-conductor braided hookup wire and vacuum wax potting for squeal free operation. The neck model is RW/RP, reverse wind reverse polarity, from the bridge pickup to provide noiseless operation when used together. The Phat Cat humbucker size P90 pickups are hand built in Santa Barbara, CA.”