Whittlez:
"Just arrived today. I chose this one in part because it has an Ebony fretboard so I wouldn't have to deal with CITES nonsense. And duuuuude. I am glad I did. This guitar is EP-IC. This is a mod (Essentially Tokai Custom Shop) of their top strat at the time in 1983, the ST-130. As with convention, the # 130 denotes a retail price in 1983 of 130,000 Yen, whereas most of their strats sold from 40-60,000 Yen. Two piece Sen Body, flame top, ebony fretboard. The frets are bigger than vintage but not as big as Medium Jumbo. It has a very unique bridge. i am going to have to find a trem bar that fits it to test it out. It appears to be solid brass. If it's plated, it shows no sign of it. The fretboard feels relatively flat for a strat. I need to pull out my radius gauges and test it out. The original pickups (and battery powered mid boost setup) are gone. In their place are SSL-5, SH-14 Duncans, and CTS pots and Orange Drop caps. The three way mini switch is really interesting. as best I can tell it goes from rear pickup tapped, center is full hbucker, and third position allows me to combine neck and bridge pickup (like a tele) . Whatever it's doing, it does full strat sparkle and quack and also does full 80's superstrat humbucker growl depending on setting, great for EVH, AC/DC and stuff like that, as well as classic strat single coil stuff. Super bitchen. I generally find the coil tap of a Hbucker to be inferior to a straight up single coil, but this sounds **** good. It had two high frets that I corrected as quickly as I could so I could get to playing it. I am supah stoked!"
