FordFanJpn
Well-known member
First of all, this is not intended to slam Tokai. I have 2 Tokai ES guitars myself, a 120 and a 130, and I love them both. However, it seems only fair to point out a few issues that have popped up with those guitars.
I have personal experience with 4 ES type guitars (so far), my 120 and 130, a friend's 130, and a 155 I checked out at a store here in Tokyo (I was thinking about buying that one too, but didn't for the reasons I'll explain below).
First of all, my 130 is perfect so far. No problems and no complaints. And it is definitely one of the best looking 335 type guitars I have seen.
My 120, unfortunately, had a couple of wiring problems (and this turns out to be the weak point at least with the 335 type guitars). Initially I had a grounding problem, i.e. there was a faulty ground connection between the pots and jack, and the tailpiece. I ended up having to drop the switch and one pot out and actually add another ground wire to get a solid ground. That solved the ground problem, but when I got the guitar back together, the neck pickup was intermittent. There turned out to be a cold solder connection on the volume pot for that pickup, so I dropped the switch and pot out again and resoldered that connection. Problem solved. One other issue I should mention is that when I put the TonePros locking studs on that guitar, I found that the bushing on the treble side of the tailpiece is not in there tight. In other words, it turns in the wood when you try to tighten the stud. I may have to pull out the bushing at some point and put something in there to tighten it up. For now though, I'm just leaving it as is.
On my friend's 130, there turned out to be no ground at all between the electronics and the tailpiece. He had to pull out the tailpiece bushing and found that when the wire was run into the hole where the bushing goes, it was pushed in too far so that some of the insulation went in too. That meant that when the bushing was pushed into the guitar, it cut the end of the wire off so the ground connection was lost. That probably should have been caught when they tested the guitar at the factory, but apparently it got through anyway. The fix was to pull the wire back out, strip off some insulation, feed it back into the bushing hole, and push the bushing back in. Not a fun job on a 335 type guitar. Anyway, that guitar is fine now, except that the toggle switch is starting to go bad now. But I guess that's a normal thing with those guitars. We're gonna order a few Switchcraft switches and just replace them all.
The 155 I checked out actually had a couple of issues that made me decide to pass on it. First of all, one of the tailpiece bushings was sunk too far down into the top of the guitar. I'd say it was 3 or 4mm too deep, which means that it would be impossible to tighten the stud down against the bushing, which I always do with stop tailpieces. The other thing I noticed was that when looking down at the ends of the pickups when holding the guitar in playing position, I could actually see the rout for the pickups sticking out under the pickup ring. So either the rout was too big (or off center), or the pickups were moved down too far and not centered in the rout properly. It wasn't a huge problem, but considering that the 155 is a higher end model, together with the bushing thing, I decided not to buy that guitar.
I want to stress again that I am not trying to start a flame here, just pointing out a few issues that I have experienced myself. I still love my 2 guitars, and am even thinking about a third one (I still want a dot neck sunburst), and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend one to someone else. For the money, they can't be beat. Most of the "problems" seem to relate to the wiring, and even though it's not fun to work on the 335 type guitars, it is possible to sort those problems out without too much difficulty. As far as playability goes, I have yet to find anything that plays as well. Right now the 120 is sitting close by, and it's the first guitar I reach for when I want to do some playing.
All in all, in terms of bang for the buck, I don't think you can find a better guitar anywhere than the Tokai's (at least for a 335 type guitar - those are the only ones I know about personally). I think it's a shame that a few issues have surfaced to put a bad spin on these guitars. But as far as I'm concerned, my 120 is still my #1!
Bill
I have personal experience with 4 ES type guitars (so far), my 120 and 130, a friend's 130, and a 155 I checked out at a store here in Tokyo (I was thinking about buying that one too, but didn't for the reasons I'll explain below).
First of all, my 130 is perfect so far. No problems and no complaints. And it is definitely one of the best looking 335 type guitars I have seen.
My 120, unfortunately, had a couple of wiring problems (and this turns out to be the weak point at least with the 335 type guitars). Initially I had a grounding problem, i.e. there was a faulty ground connection between the pots and jack, and the tailpiece. I ended up having to drop the switch and one pot out and actually add another ground wire to get a solid ground. That solved the ground problem, but when I got the guitar back together, the neck pickup was intermittent. There turned out to be a cold solder connection on the volume pot for that pickup, so I dropped the switch and pot out again and resoldered that connection. Problem solved. One other issue I should mention is that when I put the TonePros locking studs on that guitar, I found that the bushing on the treble side of the tailpiece is not in there tight. In other words, it turns in the wood when you try to tighten the stud. I may have to pull out the bushing at some point and put something in there to tighten it up. For now though, I'm just leaving it as is.
On my friend's 130, there turned out to be no ground at all between the electronics and the tailpiece. He had to pull out the tailpiece bushing and found that when the wire was run into the hole where the bushing goes, it was pushed in too far so that some of the insulation went in too. That meant that when the bushing was pushed into the guitar, it cut the end of the wire off so the ground connection was lost. That probably should have been caught when they tested the guitar at the factory, but apparently it got through anyway. The fix was to pull the wire back out, strip off some insulation, feed it back into the bushing hole, and push the bushing back in. Not a fun job on a 335 type guitar. Anyway, that guitar is fine now, except that the toggle switch is starting to go bad now. But I guess that's a normal thing with those guitars. We're gonna order a few Switchcraft switches and just replace them all.
The 155 I checked out actually had a couple of issues that made me decide to pass on it. First of all, one of the tailpiece bushings was sunk too far down into the top of the guitar. I'd say it was 3 or 4mm too deep, which means that it would be impossible to tighten the stud down against the bushing, which I always do with stop tailpieces. The other thing I noticed was that when looking down at the ends of the pickups when holding the guitar in playing position, I could actually see the rout for the pickups sticking out under the pickup ring. So either the rout was too big (or off center), or the pickups were moved down too far and not centered in the rout properly. It wasn't a huge problem, but considering that the 155 is a higher end model, together with the bushing thing, I decided not to buy that guitar.
I want to stress again that I am not trying to start a flame here, just pointing out a few issues that I have experienced myself. I still love my 2 guitars, and am even thinking about a third one (I still want a dot neck sunburst), and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend one to someone else. For the money, they can't be beat. Most of the "problems" seem to relate to the wiring, and even though it's not fun to work on the 335 type guitars, it is possible to sort those problems out without too much difficulty. As far as playability goes, I have yet to find anything that plays as well. Right now the 120 is sitting close by, and it's the first guitar I reach for when I want to do some playing.
All in all, in terms of bang for the buck, I don't think you can find a better guitar anywhere than the Tokai's (at least for a 335 type guitar - those are the only ones I know about personally). I think it's a shame that a few issues have surfaced to put a bad spin on these guitars. But as far as I'm concerned, my 120 is still my #1!
Bill
