MichaelW
Well-known member
Ok, this really IS going to be my last new guitar for a while.
I'm broke and unemployed and the ol' "slush fund" has no slush left in it........
(Yah I know I've said this before....but I REALLY REALLY mean it this time.......hahahaha)
So I was totally NOT looking for another Les Paul and was totally unprepared when the GAS hit, I was blindsided and as a result totally helpless.
As you know I recently got a Tokai SG (that was supposed to be my last new guitar for a while too.....hahah).
I was showing pics of it to my buddy and the Reverb store where I got it, and he fell for one of the Tokai Les Pauls. He kept sending me links and pics of the ones he was considering.
He wound up buying a Cherry burst one. When he got it and saw how good it was, he decided to buy a second one and got a Dark Cherry burst one.
AND he got them a lot for a lot less than I paid for mine! So with all these pics flying back and forth, one of the ones he passed on just totally grabbed my attention and I succumbed. They call it a "violin burst" but I don't think I've ever seen a violin looking like that!
It's what Gibson would call an "Iced Tea" burst.
But in any case, I love the color. And although I've grown to shy away from fancy flamed maple tops these days, this one just really appealed to me.
It's not SUPER flamey but it's got some cool figuring as well as some cool plainer edges.
I also used my buddy's strategy and made a pretty low offer and they countered with a very decent counter offer. It wound up less than 1k shipped.
And it got from Tokyo to my front door in 3 days! Pretty amazing.
As expected the build quality is excellent. The setup, fretwork, finish, everything about it just exudes quality and it played like "buttah" right out of the gig bag.
I didn't even need to oil the fingerboard. All I did was give the frets a high shine polish. And of course I gutted the electronics and put a different set of pickups in......
I actually have some Planet Tone PAF's on the way that are being wound to my specs by Jose. But in the meantime. I put a set of Durbano 59's that I had extra in it.
I should have waited, not because the Durbano's sound bad, in fact they sound fabulous! But I got the shipping notification for the Planet Tone pickups today right after I installed the Durbano's heh. Once I get a chance to A/B them against the Durbano's I'll decide which set stays in the guitar.
Love this color! Love this top too. Not too overly gaudy.
Stock wiring is always very tidy.....this was right before I tore everything out hahaha. Like my other Tokai's they use some kind of Korean pot and they used B500's for the tone controls. I replaced them with 525k TAOT CTS audio taper pots and of course converted it to 50's wiring.
I wound up using a .015 PIO cap for the neck and a .033 PIO for the bridge. This combination works really well for me on Les Paul type guitars.
Temporary place holder knobs until the Imperial knobs I ordered come in. It came stock with metric coarse spline knobs.
My trio of Tokai Les Pauls.....(although one is under the "Faber" logo)
I'm broke and unemployed and the ol' "slush fund" has no slush left in it........
(Yah I know I've said this before....but I REALLY REALLY mean it this time.......hahahaha)
So I was totally NOT looking for another Les Paul and was totally unprepared when the GAS hit, I was blindsided and as a result totally helpless.
As you know I recently got a Tokai SG (that was supposed to be my last new guitar for a while too.....hahah).
I was showing pics of it to my buddy and the Reverb store where I got it, and he fell for one of the Tokai Les Pauls. He kept sending me links and pics of the ones he was considering.
He wound up buying a Cherry burst one. When he got it and saw how good it was, he decided to buy a second one and got a Dark Cherry burst one.
AND he got them a lot for a lot less than I paid for mine! So with all these pics flying back and forth, one of the ones he passed on just totally grabbed my attention and I succumbed. They call it a "violin burst" but I don't think I've ever seen a violin looking like that!
It's what Gibson would call an "Iced Tea" burst.
But in any case, I love the color. And although I've grown to shy away from fancy flamed maple tops these days, this one just really appealed to me.
It's not SUPER flamey but it's got some cool figuring as well as some cool plainer edges.
I also used my buddy's strategy and made a pretty low offer and they countered with a very decent counter offer. It wound up less than 1k shipped.
And it got from Tokyo to my front door in 3 days! Pretty amazing.
As expected the build quality is excellent. The setup, fretwork, finish, everything about it just exudes quality and it played like "buttah" right out of the gig bag.
I didn't even need to oil the fingerboard. All I did was give the frets a high shine polish. And of course I gutted the electronics and put a different set of pickups in.....
.I actually have some Planet Tone PAF's on the way that are being wound to my specs by Jose. But in the meantime. I put a set of Durbano 59's that I had extra in it.
I should have waited, not because the Durbano's sound bad, in fact they sound fabulous! But I got the shipping notification for the Planet Tone pickups today right after I installed the Durbano's heh. Once I get a chance to A/B them against the Durbano's I'll decide which set stays in the guitar.
Love this color! Love this top too. Not too overly gaudy.
Stock wiring is always very tidy.....this was right before I tore everything out hahaha. Like my other Tokai's they use some kind of Korean pot and they used B500's for the tone controls. I replaced them with 525k TAOT CTS audio taper pots and of course converted it to 50's wiring.
I wound up using a .015 PIO cap for the neck and a .033 PIO for the bridge. This combination works really well for me on Les Paul type guitars.
Temporary place holder knobs until the Imperial knobs I ordered come in. It came stock with metric coarse spline knobs.
My trio of Tokai Les Pauls.....(although one is under the "Faber" logo)
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