Tokai Goldstar Before & After

Some of you may have seen my thread about the eightiesafied Tokai Goldstar i picked up cheap. Well after deciding the 80s where unkind to this strat i decided to "Revintagafy" it and save it from a sterile 80s existence.

so after selling of the old top mounting trem, locking nut and EMG pickups i bought the following

-Gotoh vintage style trem
-Tonerider Pure vintage Pickups
-Single ply vintage scratchplate
-3 CTS 250k pots
-0.47 sprague capacitor
-swtichcraft switches and jack
-new screws

i also decided i wanted to put a switch in to allow bridge neck combos like Gilmours strat

so here are the before shots









As you can see once i took the trem off and the locking nut i would be left with a few screwholes but that was no bother to me.


Annnnd after the pics really dont do it justice its very orangey in real life.







Sorry for the crappy pics they really dont do it justice as you can see there is a darker square where the old trem was so the paint has faded nicely with time
it sounds and plays awesomely and is as good and better then many american and jap fenders iv played. The tonerider pickups are fantastic really cheap but made to an amazing quality

Much better. Looks great - a guitar rescued :wink:

Yeah.... looks much better without all that other gear on it. Strat's just don't look right all pimped out like that.

Well done

A major upgrade! I agree with Marcus, hard to believe that 1954 technology is still state of the art.

Definitely an improvement.Makes me want to reconsider some of the ugly "modded" strats Ive passed on over the years!

Very nice. What was the locking trem?

Cali Girl said:

A major upgrade! I agree with Marcus, hard to believe that 1954 technology is still state of the art.

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"State of the art" is stretching it a bit! :lol:

The Fender tremolo design from 54 is ok, same as the Bigsby, but the thing is, people wanted to do things with trems that those old designs simply wont do.

There are also better versions of the original Fender design around these days, albeit with some small modifications like the Gotoh 510 steel block versions.
Even Fender have changed their trems now for players that like to use them a bit more forcefully.

Being into the music that I'm into I certainly think the OP has done the right thing and his Strat looks way better now!
Thankfully there hadn't been a big chunk of body wood removed to fit that hideous trem.

ned said:

Very nice. What was the locking trem?

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it was a washburn wonderbar

Nice work,bet it sounds a lot better `n`all!

JVsearch said:

"State of the art" is stretching it a bit! :lol:

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Probably right

Cali Girl said:

JVsearch said:

"State of the art" is stretching it a bit! :lol:

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Probably right

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Actually... in one sense you're right, it is state of the art.

The idea of a pivot point with the string tension matched by springs (floating trem) has probably never been bettered, now I think about it some more.
Sure, there may be some better executed versions these days, but the concept remains exactly the same as it was in 1954!

Nice rescue! Much better looking strat now.

May I ask where you found a scratchplate with screwholes that fitted the old ones? Or did you just make new ones?

I want to put a parchment, cream or maybe mint scratchplate on my Goldie, but it's a problem finding one that fits with the screholes on the body.