What wood is my Tele Custom Body from?

[Tele_Custom]

Hi everybody, this is my first post. I bought a Telecaster Custom Style Tokai just recently and I wonder what wood is it made from.
Can anyone help me to identify it. My Tele's number is 10377.
Here are some photos I made. The grain is pretty subtle and wuite hard to take photos from.
http://www.tdpri.com/forum/tele-home-depot/204950-what-wood-my-tokai-body-made.html#post2396197

Any help is much appreciated.
.

 

[bluejeannot]

Looks like a nice piece of alder.Gabe.

 

[Tele_Custom]

Are there any western catalogs that document the wood of the models? What makes an alder looking "nice" as you say? And how sure are you on identifieing it as Alder? Thanx in advance

 

[DaveWW]

Depends what the model is and the year of production but the attached link shows a transalation of pages from the 84 catalogue. As Gabe says it's Alder.

http://brochures.yokochou.com/guitar-and-amp/tokai/1984/en_06.html

 

[Tele_Custom]

I wasn't sure if it was s.th. exotic.
Thank you very much

 

[Anonymous]

"he refused to quote a price on a worthless piece of Asia plank as he described it"

:lol: What an idiot.

It looks like alder to me too. The general rule (as much as there were ever rules with Tokai!) is that the basic models were alder, & the top models were ash (or probably sen, an Asian version of ash). Here's the 1985 catalogue, which I think is a little clearer than the 1984.

And this is what sen looks like - my 1980 TE70

Much more prominent grain.

I'm a bit confused about the Tele you acquired - why did you change the neck? Any pics of the complete guitar?

Mike

 

[Tele_Custom]

Well, the reason to exchange the neck was that I have long fingers that work best with a Baja neck shape. The orig. neck was way to flat for me.
I had the body neck pocket reroutet to accept the orig. Fender dimensions. That's were Tokai went their own way.
I just came back from one of my guitar shop visits that I'm doing during the last 10 days. We have a lot of guitars to test ride in Berlin, so I could do extensive comparos.
After fine tuning and letting the strings and neck set in w. tension and playing time for a week or so, I definitely know by now, that this latest parto creation is an incredibly balanced canon w. a sweet tone you can dream of. I'm not euphoric, it's objectively true. Even the plugged in tone with my hand wound Bridge PU is better than expected.
The guitar is well balanced with a healthy emphasis in the mid range tonal spectrum. It pretty closely sounds like my orig. 63 strat which is my killer guitar for over 30 years in my possession.
If I were a wizard, I would give that Tele a tad more guts in the lows. But that would have to be a temp. experiment.
On Fender guitars there's a fine line between just right and too boomy in the low A and low E string when played amplified. The fat Baja neck contributes a lot to the sound which out of my experience is a 70%neck/30%body ratio result.
I'm very pleased w. the guitar, soundwise and cosmetically.
On request, here's my Tokai neck. Note that the pre owner has replaced the decal by an other one of his own creation "Fremder" which is the German term for foreigner or alien.
http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=190377978711&ssPageName=STRK:MESOX:IT

 

[Anonymous]

Cool, I'm glad you appreciate what you bought. What's a Baja neck? It sounds like something fat, so it wouldn't suit me.

One more thing you might like to try is getting hold of one of the original 6 part Tokai bridges, as on my TE70. In my opinion, they're the best Tele bridges on the market - you get decent intonation, & I reckon they have the edge for tone over the lightweight vintage Fender bridges. And without that annoying & pointless lip on the edge too. They show up on eBay from time to time, so might be worth a try.

8)

 

[DaveWW]

Mike,

Never one to be argumentative but I can't read your 85 catalogue scan easily - it's too small. The translation below each page (scanned below) of the 84 catalogue is much more readable. Also you can zoom the actual pages :wink:

 

[Anonymous]

True Dave. The one essential difference that seems relevant to this thread is that the 80 is down as alder in 84 but ash in 85. It's strange the way they swapped around ash & alder on certain models.

 

[Tele_Custom]

stratman323, you met an old stubborn redneck purist parallel world nostalgia nut. Those six shots ain't no good to me. Old proven performance style as much as possible, fancy after market innovations as little bit as needed. Fat saddles for fat tone. Brass vor heavy fat tone and stepped versions of that to get you into both worlds.
Check out the last photo of myCustom SB for a detailed view of the Wikinson compensated bridge.
http://www.motorhouse.org/other/geigengalerie_m_sax_m_guitars/page30/page46/page46.html

The Baja neck is a very close reproduction of historically correct early fat Telecaster necks. It does not only do justice b bidg hands, in most instances it allso sounds better due to the extra beef. They also look correct repro. However they're poly coated and it's up to you wether to sand it of or not. I did sand quite a portion but not down to the wood jetz. Will do as soon as I decided on wether to use Shellack or nitro. I also completely sanded of the bar code tag and serialnumber tag that they overspray w. poly too. My neck joins the body bare wooded

 

[Anonymous]

stratman323, you met an old stubborn redneck purist parallel world nostalgia nut.

Me too, in a way. It's a Tokai body so it should have a Tokai bridge.

Just another way of looking at it dude! :lol:

Seriously though, glad to hear that the body has worked so well for you.

8)

 

[Tele_Custom]

Thanx.