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I have a Tokai goldsound series lawsuit stratocaster copy I bought in a music store a while back. It needed a fret job, and some monkey put a floyd rose on it, and routed out the body for a humbucker. I tore it down I'd like to make the old girl shine again, suggestions?

got any pictures?
replacing the floyd rose with a standard trem is a fairly big job. you'll need to glue a block of wood in there. the humbucker hole can be filled or left as is. if it's underneath the pickguard, no one will notice.
as for the refret, see if just leveling and crowning will sort things out.

bondo

wood filler

lots of time to dry


you will be fine

Are you asking how to go about restoring it as close to stock as you can get?

bubbles_horwitz wrote:got any pictures?
replacing the floyd rose with a standard trem is a fairly big job. you'll need to glue a block of wood in there. the humbucker hole can be filled or left as is. if it's underneath the pickguard, no one will notice.
as for the refret, see if just leveling and crowning will sort things out.

Hi bubbles_horwitz,

Thanks for the advice. However, I've already taken off the Floyd Rose and put on a Dr. Parts bridge. (I don't know anything about the quality of Dr. Parts products just wanted to see if it would work) Whoever put in the Floyd Rose did so in a manner that they cut the pick guard away and didn't cut out the previously drilled bridge holes so it screwed right in. The pots are fecked, but the two single coils sound really good. How can you tell if they are alnico?

The body has got plenty of scratches and dings, I was thinking about refinishing it. The neck needs a re-fretting but I'd rather get a Fender neck or luthier made look-a-like, maybe a lefty neck?. I was thinking lipstick pick ups?

Here is a photo:

Another photo

If the pickups have a square magnet underneath they're ceramic. On Alnico pickups the poles are the magnets.

I'll take photos of the pickups later and post 'em

James wrote:Are you asking how to go about restoring it as close to stock as you can get?

Ahh no lad, no point in restoring a Tokai... I'd like to make something out of her, something original. Something that when people look at it they go, wow, that's gorgeous!

IT's ambidextrous!

You could spend an hour or two plaing around on Kisekae. I've always liked the look of 2 p90s on a strat. I think two jazzmasters pickups could look quite good as well.

James wrote:You could spend an hour or two plaing around on Kisekae. I've always liked the look of 2 p90s on a strat. I think two jazzmasters pickups could look quite good as well.

That "kisekae" rocks! I LOVE the idea of the Jazzmaster pickups...

DGNR8 wrote:IT's ambidextrous!

I just noticed that! I took the top pick with the MacBook and the other with the iPhone

heheh, so are you left or right handed? is it lake placid blue or ice blue? I think you should just get a new pickguard and put some nice strat pickups in there. I've been going through a bunch of strat modding phases and I've moved onto the point of... the classic 3 strat pickups is the best.

btw, I'll trade you some new shiny knobs for those ones. I'm sure you don't want those old dull faded ones anyway

You should give to to me. Definitely.

More photos!

mage wrote:heheh, so are you left or right handed? is it lake placid blue or ice blue? I think you should just get a new pickguard and put some nice strat pickups in there. I've been going through a bunch of strat modding phases and I've moved onto the point of... the classic 3 strat pickups is the best.

btw, I'll trade you some new shiny knobs for those ones. I'm sure you don't want those old dull faded ones anyway

Thanks anyway, keeping the old faded knobs! I dunno what kind of blue, but it doesn't really matter anyway as she's gonna get stripped!

Thing is you can find yer bog standard strat anywhere, I want something that really stands out, James, you're Jazzmaster pups idea is really growing on me! I was in Dunnes today and they were selling this magical chemical paint stripping kit.. anyone ever use this stuff? Any recommendations?

I am thinking no matter what pups I get, they're gonna have to be hand wound...

I know what you mean, I used to think the same thing, strats are boring right? but I think a nice one (which this seems to be) will go a long way for playability and getting a range of unique sounds. do you know what year this is? what's the serial number?

dude, those are vintage tokai pickups. they're awesome. I would put them in the bridge and neck position and put some whatever pickup in the middle.

you're going to strip the finish? yikes, I think it would be hard to get it to look this nice again. plus, if it's polyurethane it's a bitch to strip. normal paint stripper will not work. I've tried it before. it just sat on the guitar body and laughed at me. polyurethane is plastic. so it's just like having a layer of plastic over the whole guitar. Aen has mentioned that using a heat gun you can get the finish to bubble up and scrape it off.

some of these old tokais were nitrocellulose lacquer I think. and in that case definitely don't strip it!!

mage wrote:I know what you mean, I used to think the same thing, strats are boring right? but I think a nice one (which this seems to be) will go a long way for playability and getting a range of unique sounds. do you know what year this is? what's the serial number?

dude, those are vintage tokai pickups. they're awesome. I would put them in the bridge and neck position and put some whatever pickup in the middle.

you're going to strip the finish? yikes, I think it would be hard to get it to look this nice again. plus, if it's polyurethane it's a bitch to strip. normal paint stripper will not work. I've tried it before. it just sat on the guitar body and laughed at me. polyurethane is plastic. so it's just like having a layer of plastic over the whole guitar. Aen has mentioned that using a heat gun you can get the finish to bubble up and scrape it off.

some of these old tokais were nitrocellulose lacquer I think. and in that case definitely don't strip it!!

Are they alnico pickups thought? Surely, they can't beat hand wound pups?!

I really can't tell the difference between polyurethane and nitrocellulose lacquer... Why is stripping nitrocellulose lacquer bad?

they look like alnico. they don't have the big ceramic magnet on the bottom. I don't really know enough about these old tokais but if you want to find out more about this guitar, I would recommend asking people at the forums over at the Tokai Guitar Registry.

nitro is a more desired and rare finish than poly. People like it for it's alleged more musical quality.