Custom made through The Guitar Shop

Hi guys,
This is my first real post aside from my half-assed comment that I made about 2 weeks ago.
I am getting my lefty LS made by Tokai through the Guitar shop. They sent me a photo of the unpainted body which will be assembled this week. The final spec will be somewhere in between LS150 and LS85 (3-piece top but nitrocellulose coat and long tenon). Wanted to get a Slash VOS but there is no lefty available. So why not make one for 1/6 the price? 8) Thought you guys might be interested in seeing the process of a custom-made Tokai being put together.

Very Coool..........Keep us posted

Keep us posted please.

Dunno whether I will get any more photos of the guitar being made, but I will definitely post them if I get any.
Cheers :wink:

very, very cool. congrats

Guys, an update on the custom lefty and a slight glitch in the process which I need to consult with all the guitar gods out there.

So it seems the guitar is almost done, and they sent me a photo which looks like this:

Got no complaints about how it looks, but they wrote to me that an error was made during the production and they drilled bridge holes at positions that were meant for a righty guitar. Bummer...

They offered me two choices:
1) the current lefty with wrong bridge holes fitted with Gotoh GE103B-T, which, according to them, works fine even with the current hole placement. Oh ya, that and 10000yen discount (about 100$)

The photo shows a gold-colored bridge, but mine will be nickel in silver color.


or


2) a new body which they have already prepared, with stock bridge (probably the one used on LS92). No Discount, of course and probably another 1 or 2 months of agonizing wait. A shot of the replacement body was kindly provided:


I am very tempted to take option 1 as I have already waited enough, but am also concerned that I might not be able to replace the bridge/have strings which are skewed to one side/run into problems which I cannot foresee.

Every one of your highly expert opinions will be very much appreciated. 8)

Alright I have identified a possible problem.
The bridge on LP-type guitars are placed at an angle, not horizontally. So the end on the cutaway side is tilted up towards the upper end of the guitar (in the direction of the neck and headstock) relative to the other end of the bridge (pointing towards the bottom of the body).
This means with the current bridge holes, the strings will have lengths different from the normal LP setup.
Should this be a problem? I think it might be but am not quite sure. Maybe not, since Jimi Hendrix always used a righty guitar strung in the opposite way. Remember seeing a photo of him using a righty Les Paul too.

Playing in tune doesn't really matter if you are Jimi Hendrix, he'd sound good on just about anything.

I would say go for option #2, it might be a long wait, but if you pick option #1 you'll have a guitar with a fault for a lot longer, in six months you will kick yourself for not waiting!

Minoupark said:

Alright I have identified a possible problem.
The bridge on LP-type guitars are placed at an angle, not horizontally. So the end on the cutaway side is tilted up towards the upper end of the guitar (in the direction of the neck and headstock) relative to the other end of the bridge (pointing towards the bottom of the body).
This means with the current bridge holes, the strings will have lengths different from the normal LP setup.
Should this be a problem? I think it might be but am not quite sure. Maybe not, since Jimi Hendrix always used a righty guitar strung in the opposite way. Remember seeing a photo of him using a righty Les Paul too.

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I understand what your saying here about the angle on the bridge and I think that is why they chose to use the GE103b-t bridge. It has the larger studs that use inserts into the wood as opposed to the bridge normally used having the thumbwheel studs screwed directly into the wood. This means that the larger holes that they use will drill out the misplaced holes when they put these in the correct position. Just like they were meant to be there and it wont be a botch job.

I just measured my LS125 between the pickup ring and the thumbwheel stud and there is only 2.5mm diferance, so thier idea should work.
So now it is up to you if you would like those inserts or not, it seems gibson use these larger type bridges inserts on there standards and studio's but not on the R8's,9's or 0's .

This is a tough one. I would say wait for option 2, but the top on the original one they've built is prettier IMHO. I wonder if they doweled and redrilled the holes correctly on the original, if the "wrong" holes would be covered by a second thumbwheel ran all the way down to the body, ala Rossington?



It sucks to have a brand new guitar with a mod like that, but like I said, I like the original's top is better...

Just a thought. Good luck and keep us posted!

You guys indeed know a lot about guitars. Great. Thanks for all the input. Now I have to decide which way to roll :-? I do prefer the top of the first one...

You prefer the top on the first guitar, that's what makes this a hard choice. If you could have gone either way, it'd have been a no-brainer. Go for #2.
If the guys at Tokai tell you it'll work, then I'm sure it'll work. I would never have gone for option 1 if they'd given me 50% off though.

What RyanC is describing would involve redrilling? Then hoping the ToM or ToM-clone will cover the misplaced holes? I'm not sure I understand correctly.
[edit] I get what Ryan is saying now, I wasn't familiar with 'doweling'. That would mean 'stuffing' a piece of wood in the 'righty' holes, right?

I'm really hoping that'll work. You may offer that suggestion to the guys at the CustomLab.

For me; I would NOT go with the trick bridge and $100 discount. I'd rather take the blems the dowels might leave.

I don't know why they would need to use dowels to plug the original holes because the new larger holes should drill them out completely 8)

RocknBlues said:

I don't know why they would need to use dowels to plug the original holes because the new larger holes should drill them out completely 8)

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Doweling the original 'righty' holes before drilling the larger postholes would assure 'safe'drilling. Dunno. They would use a drill press and these guys know what they're doing so if that would work it might just be the best option. I'll do some measurements on my LP clone tonight.

The only problem I can see would be that the guitar would not have vintage specs with the new bridge.
The first holes that were drilled would not exist any more because looking at the specs of the new bridge studs they would need about an 11mm hole and the original stud holes are only 4mm and if they have 2.5mm difference in the centre's like my guitar ,then the new holes should drill over the old hole by 1mm :wink: 8)

RocknBlues said:

I don't know why they would need to use dowels to plug the original holes because the new larger holes should drill them out completely 8)

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They will need to use dowels if he wants an ABR bridge on the first top, the bridge they want to use is like the Gibson Nashville Tune-o-matic, using large studs set into the top and then screws going into those. The studs are more than double the diameter of the ABR posts so they can easily be drilled over the original thin holes, removing them completely.

The point is that if you want vintage spec you have to go for a new body, unless you can live with Ryan's solution of dowelling the current holes and re-drilling for the ABR posts in the correct positions, it's only a couple of millimetres and a second set of thumbwheels will definitely cover it, if it's even that visible. Personally, as stated by Junior Enthusiast, I could live with this, if I got the top I liked.

Still, I'm glad I don't have to make the decision!

Actually, hang on... RocknBlues says the centres of the holes are 2.5 mm different, so that means that the holes on this guitar will have to move by 5mm? The one on the low E should be the furthest back, but it is currently the closest and vice versa for the high E. If I'm right the dowel repair may be marginally visible.

I'm with RyanC & JV ........... have the holes doweled, and then re-drill for the correct locations & angles, for the TOM studs

the 'repair' will hardly be noticeable :wink:

it's a 'piece of cake' job for a competent luthier

It's a rough world out there for us lefties :lol:

Which is why I play right handed.

ned said:

Which is why I play right handed.

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+1 :lol: