1980s Tokai-made '50s P-Bass Clone Electric Bass Guitar
This bass probably began its life of interest with a lovers' quarrel. It came in with a big F*** Y** scratched on its back and a small-caliber gunshot wound to the headstock. It was also filthy and looked like it'd been dragged to any number of punk shows -- as if this particular relationship had been neglected for decades. It had no knobs and most of its pickguard screws were long-gone. The action was a mile high.
Suffice to say, I was intrigued. It also helped that I could recognize its good pedigree under all that negative energy. I'm almost certain that this was made by Tokai in Japan in the early-to-mid '80s. It might even be a hair earlier but probably isn't. It's unbranded and the only markings on it are BA-21 penciled on the neck's heel and a 5-digit, meaningless serial number on the neckplate.
The clues stack up, however: it's very well-made and is the equal of any Fender Japan (and many Fullerton-made) P-Basses of the era. It even has the lovely, chunky, big old C-shaped neck profile. Its hardware and build-style all match the PB57/'50s style P-Bass model Tokai was making at the time except for its 1-ply white pickguard and non-standard headstock shape. Considering that the company was making models for various other brands (among them the nicer Hondo IIs), though, that's hardly surprising.
The body is two-piece alder (I think) and finished in the two-tone, earlier sunburst style. It has big, reverse-turning tuners with the vintage-style "darts" on the plates, a skunk-striped one-piece maple neck with heel-adjustment truss rod, and a vintage-style, threaded-saddle bridge. It's even lightweight for a P at 8lb, 2oz -- ready for a long session, indeed!
Work included a lot of cleaning, a fret level/dress, a new wiring harness with 500k pots and proper shielding, a set of parts-bin '60s Japanese knobs, one replacement strap button, a new bone nut, and a good setup. It's currently rocking a fairly-heavy set of strings (the bottom feels like 108-110w) but the neck has a little bit of adjustment room left on its rod and deflection is ~1/64" overall. It plays oh-so-good and the vintage, bigger neck profile is very home-base for my hands.
Specs are: 34" scale length, 1 5/8" nut width, 1 3/8" string spacing at the nut, 13 1/4" lower bout width, 11 1/8" upper bout, and 1 5/8" side depth. It has a traditional body cut and tummy-cut profiling on the rear. Action is excellent with 3/32" EA and hair-under 3/32" DG height at the 12th fret.
Suffice to say, I was intrigued. It also helped that I could recognize its good pedigree under all that negative energy. I'm almost certain that this was made by Tokai in Japan in the early-to-mid '80s. It might even be a hair earlier but probably isn't. It's unbranded and the only markings on it are BA-21 penciled on the neck's heel and a 5-digit, meaningless serial number on the neckplate.
The clues stack up, however: it's very well-made and is the equal of any Fender Japan (and many Fullerton-made) P-Basses of the era. It even has the lovely, chunky, big old C-shaped neck profile. Its hardware and build-style all match the PB57/'50s style P-Bass model Tokai was making at the time except for its 1-ply white pickguard and non-standard headstock shape. Considering that the company was making models for various other brands (among them the nicer Hondo IIs), though, that's hardly surprising.
The body is two-piece alder (I think) and finished in the two-tone, earlier sunburst style. It has big, reverse-turning tuners with the vintage-style "darts" on the plates, a skunk-striped one-piece maple neck with heel-adjustment truss rod, and a vintage-style, threaded-saddle bridge. It's even lightweight for a P at 8lb, 2oz -- ready for a long session, indeed!
Work included a lot of cleaning, a fret level/dress, a new wiring harness with 500k pots and proper shielding, a set of parts-bin '60s Japanese knobs, one replacement strap button, a new bone nut, and a good setup. It's currently rocking a fairly-heavy set of strings (the bottom feels like 108-110w) but the neck has a little bit of adjustment room left on its rod and deflection is ~1/64" overall. It plays oh-so-good and the vintage, bigger neck profile is very home-base for my hands.
Specs are: 34" scale length, 1 5/8" nut width, 1 3/8" string spacing at the nut, 13 1/4" lower bout width, 11 1/8" upper bout, and 1 5/8" side depth. It has a traditional body cut and tummy-cut profiling on the rear. Action is excellent with 3/32" EA and hair-under 3/32" DG height at the 12th fret.
With its heavily-distressed, scratched-up pickguard and scratched-up body to boot, this is the perfect bar-gig bass.
The neck construction is very traditional with its one-piece slab, skunk-striped back, rosewood plug at the nut, and heel-mounted truss rod nut. The finish has aged into a perfect, buttery-yellow color, too.
Note that there are filled-in gouges under each string at the nut -- as if someone was trying to play this for years without a nut. There's also a filled-in small hole where the instrument was shot.
The exit wound (since patched) on the back of the headstock looks a lot worse but is entirely stable. The damage jerked-up some chips right around it and made a couple of longer finish cracks, but all of that has been clamped-down and sealed.
The tuner suffered a bit worse, though, and has a hairline crack in the bottom-plate (and a section missing) under its worm-gear, but it still works well. I lubed all the tuners and pressed the damaged one in a vice until I could get its plate more-normal.
The frets are in great shape and only needed the most minor level/dress work.
It's hard to deny the lived-in charm of this old beastie or the timeless look of maple neck on sunburst body.
The output of these pickups is quite vintage but they sure have the tone in spades. This guy definitely gets that P-Bass thump and piano-like twerrrng. While I used higher-value pots in the harness (which lets more highs into the signal), the .022 cap I used on the tone gives the player more than enough roll-off to zap finger noise when rocking roundwound strings.
I'm a fan of the original-style threaded saddles -- you can micro-adjust string spacing if you need to.
I have a feeling these 5-digit numbers were used on the neckplates to emulate the era of the Fender-style serials these basses were meant to be clones of.
"Pocky for you!" is a lot friendlier than the original phrase back here, though I did need to add a bit to get it there. It's also appropriate -- because it not only celebrates this guy's origins but our local connection is that the bakery down the street makes good use of those sticks to decorate their treats.
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