Bridges and Tailpieces on Tokai LS models ?

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Harima_San

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I will, in short, refresh a very used Tokai LC110 of the early eighties. The Tailpiece is in the wrong colour, the bridge seems at the verge of beeing totally toasted.

I will probably have to change both. I'm searching for gold coloured steel versions, but have difficulties to find any. It looks like the whole market switches to aluminium when gold colour is involved. What I don't want. Does anybody knows where I could find such gear ?

Another thing that I don't know is, if the Tokai Les Paul's are metric or any other standard. Does somebody know that ?
 
Thank you Herr Nieman. Seems to be fine gear

Has somebody experiences with the different metals you can make the bridges and stop bars with ?

(brass vs steel vs aluminum)
 
Steel is generally found in modern designs. Aluminium is used on more expensive/authentic vintage reproductions.

Aluminium is generally considered to have a smoother, sweeter tone.

Brass is generally reserved for vintage saddles.
 
Faber stuff is great. I have them on all my ABR-1 type guitars (which is around 10). On everyone I use the hybrid bridge $27 USD or so upgrade. This has titanium on the 3 wound strings and brass (then nickel or gold coated) on the 3 high strings. I love the Faber bridges. I am going to order three more of them in a few weeks.

Titanium makes muddy sounding strings cut through more. That is why I get them only on the wound strings.
 
One up for Faber from here as well, I stuck the locking ABR1 and locking tailpiece studs on my Tokai recently and I'm loving them, no more rattling and parts escaping during string change. Their regular ToM parts, however, are just the average zinc-and-brass vintage type, can't say anything for the titanium saddles as well but I've heard people like 'em.

One thing I have to say about the regular import (M4 studs) ABR1, the tolerances on the parts are quite strict meaning if you're wanting to do a drop-in replacement for your MIJ guitar you might run into a problem with adjusting the studs for action height since the original hardware is usually made to a bit laxer tolerances which also translates to a little variable spacing between the studs, meaning the Faber studs and bridge might be a tight fit and will require a little fiddling around when adjusting the bridge height.
 

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