An excellent, though admittedly quirky, Chinese-made Tokai copy of a Gibson Firebird 1, bought for a song. Nicknamed “The Comedy Firebird”, unfair as it’s a great guitar.
Reverse body, wraparound bridge, single pickup, and dot inlays are all as per the original but the headstock is like a transition ’65 model, reversed but not carved and with regular angled tuners, not the straight-through banjo-style ones. The body is slightly thicker than a real ‘Bird and the lower bout is a bit larger. The scale is also weird : 24 7/8″, between a Gibson and a PRS.
The pickup was a rather microphonic ceramic humbucker so I had Matt Gleeson at Monty’s kindly install the guts of vintage-voiced P90 with Alnico 4 magnet installed inside the cover.
Unlike the two others I’ve seen, the original pickup surround was black plastic – a pity. It was oversized so a regular retrofit chrome one wouldn’t fit, so I made one (rather clumsily). Great improvement, looks ok until you get really close.
The set neck is pretty big and its plays really easily and the sound is huge, like a warmer Firebird 1. The body is made from five laths of wood, glued on a random diagonal!
It was missing the trussrod cover when I bought it so I researched carefully and had another cut. Then the original turned up. I prefer the replacement so it stays on the guitar while the original lives in the case (an SKB pointy gig bag, still big but better than a huge coffin case).
