CA Guitar Repair Blog: Working on a Tokai FV

Part 2 ▶

Preamble

As covered in a previous post, this gloss black Tokai FV was sent in to CA Guitar Repair along with an Ibanez Iceman late last year. Work on the Iceman has concluded, and it's now time to start on the Tokai. As there's quite a lot to be done, I've staggered the various tasks, fretwork being top of the list.

Fretwork and Binding Repair

The neck has been straightened, and I've just finished checking the frets with a fret rocker. Turns out that there are eight high frets, namely; frets 3 - 4, 9 - 10, and 17 - 20. I've marked these particular frets, and will be spot leveling, recrowning, and polishing them.

High Frets - Frets 3 and 4

High Frets - Frets 9 and 10

High Frets - Frets 17 to 20

Besides the frets in question, there's also quite a bit of crumbling going on with the black plastic fretboard binding, especially noticeable from frets 6 to 13. As this will only get worse with time, something needs to be done right now. I've decided to saturate the affected areas with rosewood dust and super glue, and then get to work with a razor blade and sandpaper.

Damaged Fretboard Binding

Rosewood Dust/Super Glue Filler Applied

Scraping Off Excess Filler

Binding After Repairs

With binding repair taken care of, I'm now able to concentrate on fretwork, or more accurately, spot leveling. Now, although only those eight high frets need to be leveled and recrowned, all 22 frets will be lightly abraded and polished. Following this, the fretboard will be thoroughly cleaned with naphtha, and conditioned with lemon oil.

Fretwork Completed

Fretboard After Cleaning and Conditioning

Electronics Work

Right then, the time is ripe to deal with the electronics. To that end, the pickguard has been unscrewed, revealing a rather grimy under-pickguard area, and equally cruddy body cavities. Of particular interest here is the faulty bridge ground wire, which appears to be intact but has snapped off somewhere inside. No worries, though, as I'll be able to fit a new ground wire when I replace the bridge mount bushings.

Grimy Pickup and Control Cavities

Faulty Bridge Ground Wire

The two "inspired by P90" pickups are brand new, and appear to be in good shape. DCR readings are 7.7K for the neck pickup, and 8.7K for the bridge. As received, both were already installed in the FV but not wired in. The reason being, as I have discovered, a much too short neck pickup cable. So, to connect the neck pickup to its volume pot, I'll have to splice in extra hot and ground leads.

Undersides of Neck and Bridge Pickups

Neck Pickup Cable After Lengthening

And now, let's talk pots, switches, and output jacks. As I'd half expected, the pots are indeed mini 500Ks in none too good condition. They'll not be retained, that's for sure. The selector switch, meanwhile, is your generic "boxed" three-way toggle, and seems to operate as it should. It will be reused after a spot of servicing. Which brings us to the plastic-bodied output jack socket. While the wiring is really gnarly and needs to be replaced, there's nothing amiss with the socket itself.

Disassembled Electronics and Hardware

Close-Up of the Pots and Switch

Gnarly Output Jack Wiring

Cleaned and Rewired Output Jack

Let's see, then. As all the components are ready, the next step is to reinstall the pickups, pickguard-mounted electronics and output jack plate. Take note that the output jack on this FV isn't mounted to the pickguard, but inside a separate body cavity. Seems counter-intuitive, but it is what it is. Once I reinstall everything, solder the necessary connections, and test the circuitry; we'll call electronics work done.