At the end of last year, I had the privilege of working on a vintage Bigsby pole piece guitar pickup for Deke Dickerson. I’m not sure where he got it but it’s going on the “Butterball Paige” guitar that is currently being restored. The work that I did required the pickup to be fully disassembled. At that time I was able to take notes on how it was constructed, accurately take all the measurements of the magnets, bobbin, base plate and aluminum housing. I think it’s obvious that I’ve been a Bigsby nut for a long time now, so with all of this information, the next logical step was to make my own reproduction of this legendary guitar pickup.  Now I’m offering it for sale as the C.A.R. Pickup.

TK SMITH C.A.R. ROUTER SCHEMATIC

The first step was to make the wood patterns for the aluminum pickup housing and trim rings. (I’m offering the trim rings in two sizes at this time, a 1/8’’ flat one and a 7/16’’ raised one). Before I started I calculated how much aluminum shrinks in the casting process and added a few thousands for clean up and polishing to my measurements. I used some mahogany I had laying around to make the patterns. Then I found a source to make the magnets for me to the exact dimensions and material as the originals. All of the other parts (bobbin and base plate) I fabricate at my shop with my antique tools and somewhat hillbilly fabricating methods. The clean up and polishing of the cast aluminum pieces is also done at my shop so I can ensure a nice fit of the trim ring to the pickup housing.

It took a few months to get all this to happen but I finally got a few assembled and mounted on my Telecaster. It’s a great pickup that I’m completely happy with. Perfect for anyone playing traditional Jazz, Swing, Rockabilly, Travis picking or Blues. Mounted at the bridge position it’s perfect for that ‘’Grady Martin” sound. At the neck, it’s a great pickup for Jazz, Swing and Blues. It has that distinct hollow, wooden, almost buoyant tone that floats so well on top of what a good rhythm section is doing. Here is a quick demo of the C.A.R. Pickup at the bridge position.

On another note, the Pole Piece and Blade Pickups that have been Sold Out in our Store will be available again soon.

Fortunately, TK hasn’t had time to work on any fabrication other than guitars lately, so when the owner of the “It House” wanted one of our Concrete Planters, he was happy to oblige. Even though it snowed in the desert last night, we’re already thinking about Spring, warm weather and what we want to accomplish in the yard this year!

I finished up this pickup over the weekend and am pleased with the way it turned out. To avoid any hassle I’m going to say it’s a replica but I won’t say of what.

I will say it features a cast aluminum housing, 40AWG wire, alnico magnets with the same great sound as my blade pickup.

I’m thinking of making a batch of these to sell if there is enough interest.  The price will probably be close to my blade pickup (sans walnut spacer). So if you or anyone you know may be interested in one or a pair, shoot me an email.

I have another small batch of my C.C. type pickups ready to ship (the first batch went fast). They run $245 plus shipping. You can get yours here.

Here are a few photos of the two finished Smith Special guitars that I’ve been working on for a number of months. I started mine over a year ago. When Hiro sent his Kay, I decided to build both guitars at the same time. I refinished the body on mine and Hiro’s has the original finish. You can see the process of both here.  Hiro’s is finally ready to ship to Japan and I can just enjoy mine for now.

I’ve been using this type of arm for about twenty years now. I originally made it because I had an old Bigsby vibrato with a Travis type arm that I couldn’t  get used to. I wanted something similar to what Chet was using but didn’t want to change the way it attached to my old vibrato. After using it for awhile I found that it was handy having the pivot point closer to my hand. It makes it really easy to access while playing. It’s also is very easy to adjust. Using set screws, the arm swivels at three points. Just loosen the set screws and rotate the parts until it’s in the right spot. Tighten it up and your good to go. Hand made in the U.S.A. Available in our Store now.

A friend of mine offered me this shaper that belonged to his grandfather about a year ago. Thinking that I wouldn’t have much use for a wood shaper, and not wanting a tool that would take up shop space, I hesitated. After a few months of having it in the back of my mind I decided to get it.  It’s in excellent original condition. A new power cord and some oil is all it needed. I bought an adapter to hold 1/4” and 1/2” shank router bits, it makes a great router table. It spins at 10,350 rpm and seems just about perfect for cutting garolite and the other materials I’ve tried so far.

Every Saturday morning I look forward to going to our local swap meet to feed my vintage tool addiction. I have a few folding allen wrench sets but I’ve never seen this brand before. Some of my friends have always called me “Smitty”, for obvious reasons, so for $2 I had to get it. A quick Google Search showed that B.H. Smith, no relation, was the first person to file a patent on this design in 1948. Like my other American made tools, this one was built to last.

For a while, TK’s been fabricating a new work for Andrea Zittel called the “Workstation”. It’s a functional piece of furniture made to go between two home offices and holds the printer, other electronics, files etc.  We took a road trip this week to Yountville, in the Napa Valley to install it. The trip took an entire day to drive there, a day to install and a full day’s drive back. The location was an amazing Winery that features not only great wine, but some of the most beautiful and interesting architecture we’ve ever seen. The vineyard has a long, rich history in the area and the current winery was completed in 1997. The home on the property, where the installation took place, and which you can see in the upper left photo above, will be finished this fall.

Considering that the piece was disassembled before it left the shop and then reassembled on site, everything went really well. When we arrived, the contractor said, “don’t scratch the floors and do not touch the walls around where the Workstation will be installed”! The walls are covered with a very thin, fragile white paper. I gave TK a look, both of us knowing that if he even slightly touched the walls while moving the piece into place, we were screwed. TK can get a white surface dirty from just looking at it! We joke about it constantly.

The Napa Valley, being known for great food and wine, certainly delivered. Our typical workday consists of Cheerios for breakfast and a sandwich for lunch. On this trip, we ate breakfast at the Oakville Grocery, lunch at Redd and dinner at Oenotri. Not bad! We would never normally stop in the middle of the day for a lovely lunch with great company and great wine, but if we lived in that part of California, we could get used to it.

We are fortunate to have numerous projects going on in the shop right now. This week is one of those times when everything is in the “middle” of the process and nothing is complete. We thought we would share some photos of a few projects, where they’re at up to today. Included are a Kay Guitar modification that’s just getting started, a Tele modification, some custom pickguards/inlay that are almost finished and a few fabrication jobs for artist Andrea Zittel. As each job reaches completion, we’ll post final photos. There is always some discovery or learning that occurs with each project so for us, it’s fun and beneficial to look at photos throughout the process. Hope you like it too!