I've owned a number of Eastman acoustics over the past decade, and I've liked them well enough to return to the fold but not enough to hang onto them for an extended period. However, 2025 finds me the owner of three Eastman acoustics, and they are really fine instruments. I currently own an E10D-TC, an E20OM-TC and an E20OM-TC-MR, and I just marvel at the playability, craftsmanship, tone and appearance of these guitars. I awoke in the middle of last night and slipped into the living room of my very quiet house. I played them one by one and marveled at my trio. This comes from a guy who has previously owned Martins, Taylors, Guilds, Larrivees and Emeralds; but my return to playing the music of the 60s folk artists of my adolescence and my return to the Eastman fold nicely coincide nicely. My previous preference has been for Eastman dreads, but these OMs are currently getting much love from this 75 year old boomer...

Bit left field - but does anyone know whether modern Japanese guitars are built, as standard, to accept dual voltages - I mean both 100 volts (the standard power grid in Japan) and 230/240 volts (US and UK etc.)?

Has anyone done a comparison of these two guitars? I own a E10SS and I’m wondering how much difference there is in sound between the two. Thanks.

Billy Roberts wrote and regularly performed Hey Joe in the late 1950s and registered it for copyright in 1962. The song's provenance is murky and contentious because in writing it Roberts drew on a number of earlier songs. First commercially recorded in 1965 by LA garage band The Leaves it is now mostly associated with Jimi Hendrix who recorded it in 1966. No commercial version of Billy singing his song was ever produced, but this is allegedly his own 1961 home recording (vid not original) of Hey Joe:- https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/f...oe.919134/

Hi all,

I wanted to provide and alternative method for removing a pickguard that seems much less invasive/risky than what I have previously seen on this forum (and others). The go-to method appears to be using a source of heat (e.g., hair dryer, heat gun) to partially melt the pick guard's glue, then to slowly pry the guard up once the glue has softened. Then, some sort of solvent (e.g., naptha/lighter fluid, "goo gone") is used to remove the remaining residue from the guitar top after the pick guard has been removed. I know many have used the above method tons of time successfully, but I was a little nervous to try this on my brand new guitar - so I went looking for alternatives. I used the below technique on my new E1SS-DLX-SB this morning to remove the pick guard, and it worked perfectly. While I know this guitar is a J45 clone, I really don't like how the pickguard looks on it. Additionally, the burst is really beautiful IMO, so I wanted to remove the guard if possible to show more of that burst. Since my goal was to have a guitar without any pickguard at all, the cleanup had to be immaculate.

To remove the guard, I used a once folded piece of printer paper and slid it under the pick guard starting at the pointy part closest to the fretboard (I used a finger nail to get things started). Then, using a sawing motion with the paper, I slowly worked my way down the guard, which was remarkably easy. In my case, once the guard was halfway off, I was able to (very) slowly peel the guard off without any assitance from the paper, and no damage to the finish/top occured.

There was still some glue residue left behind, and sawing the paper along under the pick guard resulted in some glue being smeared beyond the boundaries of the original guard itself. Consquently, some sort of cleanup was required. In my case, the glue was too hard to roll into little balls/peel off by hand, as is often recommended (likely because I hadn't used any heat to partially melt the glue). At this point in the removal I was a little nervous, since the guitar top looked pretty awful!

One poster on another forum indicated that butter can be effective at removing glue smears. Yep - butter like you use to cook with. This seemed to be pretty low stakes - if it didn't work, there presumably wouldn't be any damage to the guitar or finish, other than increasing its colesterol (ha..). I just took a little dab of room temperature butter on a paper towel, and went to town on the glue spots. Just enough butter to barely cover the glue areas in a sheen - a little goes a very long way! It took a little elbow grease, but it really did an amazing job of removing all the glue residue. I then cleaned things up with a little soapy water to remove the butter from the top once I was done, and it polished right up! If you told me the guitar came from the factory without a pick guard, I would believe you. There is no indication in the gloss finish that a pick guard was ever on the guitar. I think I have correctly attached a few photos, so hopefully you can see what I mean.

A few disclaimers: This was basically a brand new guitar. If you try this on an older guitar, the top will likely have aged, and the wood outside the pickguard will likely be a darker color than the unexposed wood currently under the pickguard (often referred to as guitar "tan lines"), and it will be obvious a guard was removed. Also, I have only done this once, and it was to an eastman guitar with TrueTone Gloss finish and a stock eastman pickguard. I have no idea how this method would work with other guitar brands/pickguards/finish types.

Hopefully this helps someone else further down the road!

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I'm a real fan of that cool patina and natural wear that gives a guitar its “mojo”. I understand that it tends to develop best on certain types of finishes—especially those that are thinner and more organic. Which makes me question if this will happen with the true tone gloss eastman is using. 

How is your Eastman true tone gloss aging? is it developing some patina?

Interested to see pictures.

I played a Martin acoustic-electric SC13e a couple of years ago and was mighty impressed with it. For Martin, a company revered as a bastion of tradition to come up with this asymetric cutaway shape and innovative adjusible neck design - bolt-on but still wood to wood - is astonishing. It is the most playable guitar I've ever picked up. And despite its laminated back and sides sounds good acoustically and plugged in its under saddle pickup sounds ok, par for the course. Had I been into home/studio recording or a gigging musician plugging into PA systems, rather than an old folky, I suspect I would have been even more taken with it. I wondered if they would ever produce all solid wood pure acoustic dread versions. Well they haven't done that but I just noticed (better late than never lol) that they are making all solid mahogany SC18E and rosewood SC28E versions with more sophisticated electronics incorporating an on-board microphone. They are very expensive and realistically beyond what most of us could/would be prepared to pay, especially those of us like me who would rarely plug them in. Nevertheless WOW! Question - has anyone played either the SC18e or SC28e? Good reviews from Peghead Nation here:-
SC18E:  https://www.pegheadnation.com/instrument...in-sc-18e/
SC28E: https://www.pegheadnation.com/instrument...in-sc-28e/
These reviews cover some of the same ground regarding the SC physical design and electronics.  
One last thought - I am still intrigued with the notion of all solid wood pure acoustic SCs in Hog and IRW with the greater (by 0.6”) body depth of the D18 and D28, or even 0.25” greater still to compensate for the loss of body volume due to the cutaway.

All - we are having some site caching issues which is leading to some unexpected behavior.

I'm working to fix it - ETA not yet known. I'm on it!

_______

Update - The issues should be fixed now. My apologies as my host made a caching change without telling me that impacted the site. 

Please send me a note at meathead40@gmail.com in the future if you ever have issues with EGF.

Thanks!

Hey everyone,

I need some feedback on my new-to-me SB59/v. I’ve been following Eastman for a few years and dreaming about owning one of these bad boys. I’ve owned several Gibson LP studios over the years and wanted to take a step up in quality without having to support “the big G” and their ever increasing prices. Spec-wise the SB59 tics all my boxes: ebony fretboard,bone nut, boutique PAF style pickups, hand wired electronics, premium hardware, etc. I like the Eastman company’s design choices and ethos; I like that they use sustainable woods like okume and that they use environmentally friendly finishes. I’m especially fond of the French polish varnish finish. I think that’s a classy touch no one else is doing. I also love supporting an underdog company and don’t really care about what name is on the headstock of my guitar. I finally pulled the trigger on a 2021 SB59/v in the “redburst” finish after finding a good deal on Reverb.

Well the guitar came today and I gotta say, I’m ambivalent. The finish is indeed beautiful. I don’t mind any of the simulated wear. I think all the scratches and dings look pretty tasteful. Here come the “but.”

But…There seems to be some areas that just have some poor QC. Maybe I’m crazy or maybe it’s just part of the reliced look but I’m not sure. The main areas of concern are around the neck binding at the upper frets. (I’ve attempted to attach photos from my phone). It just looks like the scraping of the binding was sloppy and heavy-handed. On the bass side, the finish line is uneven and the binding has small gouges where it meets the body. On the treble side, the finish looks goopy and uneven and the wood has what looks like tiny gouges in it. It also looks like there’s dark greenish-black residue in the corner where the neck binding meets the body that seems left behind from sanding or something. There’s a little gap between the neck pickup ring and the base of the fretboard which on its own is no concern but the finish in that area has white gunk in it and doesn’t have clear coat.

What’s confusing to me is that by all accounts, Eastman has excellent QC-better than Gibson USA even. I’ve heard nothing but rave reviews about the SB59/v in terms of quality, craftsmanship, and value. My understanding was that these were custom shop level instruments at a killer price point. This is the most I’ve spent on a guitar so my expectations were pretty high. I want to love this guitar but I can’t help but fixating on these areas especially since some of them are right under my nose when I’m playing.

To owners of the SB59/v (or other Eastman electrics with the varnish finish): do these “imperfections” seem par for the course, part of the relic look, or did I get just get a bad apple? Does anyone have similar observations? What do you think of these areas? Are my expectations too high?

Thanks!

Greetings! Newbie to the forum here. I’ve been playing Eastman archtops for more than 10 years. Love ‘em. So I looked at Eastman when I began my flattop search. I just bought an E5 and like it a lot.
My understanding is that they were a custom shop order for LA Guitar Sales about 10 years ago. If any members here have additional information I’d appreciate learning. As an aside, the last E5 I can find listed for sale anywhere was 10 years ago.
Dave