It's another Junior! This Tokai TJ-78 has just braved the snow and arrived from la belle France. :D
I've been looking for a nice doublecut Junior for a while (wish I'd bought one of the Edwards ones before they were discontinued!), so I snapped this up as soon as it appeared on eBay.
It's a little heavier than I was expecting, but still under 8 pounds, and that's OK - my singlecut Epi Juniors are quite light, so it's something different. It seems a little less resonant but has really long sustain. Good chunky neck, and it seems sturdy - the tenon isn't quite full-width but it extends 7cm into the body.
The previous owner seems to have favoured the gaffer-tape strap approach :? .... there are patches of sticky shite all over the body but it looks like it's in good nick underneath. Just a few minor dings and scratches and an extra strap-button hole on the top horn - I might try both this and the button at the heel of the neck, see which balances better.
The pickup is, apparently, a Duncan Antiquity and the pots have been upgraded to CTS (but they feel very stiff). The bridge is the usual piece of cr@p but I have a Faber to try in its place.
Most egregiously, the tuners have been replaced with Schaller Grover copies :x . And they've been over-tightened so some of the paint on the headstock has cracked :x :x . I'll replace them with some vintage types - I'd really like to try the three-on-a-strip ones, but I suspect they're not quite in a straight line. So it'll be Gotohs with conversion bushings or maybe TonePros Klusons, depending on how badly the holes in the headstock have been drilled.
All in all, though, I think this has potential....




