Does old 70's-style GOTOH Les Paul hardware come IN BLACK? ...if so, where to buy?

[Adieu]

Pretty much what the title says: Does old 70's-style GOTOH hardware come in black? ...if so, where to buy?



PS yeah, I'm looking for *these* exact Gotoh tuners... Not the newer strat-type Fender E-series/ESP/Ibanez-style Gotohs with holes at 4:30, but the big LP-style tuners with this exact hole pattern at 6 & 12 o'clock. And yes, MIJ please, not knockoffs. A bridge to match wouldn't hurt, too, also Gotoh MIJ and none of that TonePros crud.


Why? Well, thinking I possibly wanna update my old 70s Japanese LP Custom's looks a bit.... Also (and alas), I firmly believe that this sh*t effin RULES, cuz it does so darn well even after **40 YEARS**, so unless it costs some ungawdly 3-digit number each for tuners and tunamatic, I might be looking to put this on other guitars too, and I definitely don't wanna replace the stuff for something with inferior performance... Cuz it suuuuure beats the hell outta them slippery $39.99 Grovers (might've been good once upon a time, but not the crap today... the only thing they do reliably is induce neck dive) and holds up to a LOT more wear&tear than those flimsy TonePros bridges and their tendency to lose their finish and get scratched&chipped in just a couple years.

Also... I kinda like that they're made outta REAL stainless. Yep, stainless steel. Which, like all real stainless, picks up just a teeeeeny tiny bit of rust flecks after a few decades, but doesn't lose its lustre or its texture. And DEFINITELY doesn't flake off to expose powdered frickin zinc.

 

[Ashurbanipal]

Re: Does old 70's-style GOTOH Les Paul hardware come IN BLACK? ...if so, where to buy

Hmm, I don't think so. I believe black hardware only started coming on instruments in the 80s, with companies like Kramer, Ibanez, and Jackson leading the pack. So no vintage black ones like yours, as far as I know. In the 80s, Gotoh was making the Smooth Tuners for Ibanez (I think), which came in black, which are similar to the modern SGM in appearance and dimensions.

Gotoh offers various modern types in black with mounting screws 90˚ perpendicular to tuning peg (but just on the bottom side); you'd have to check that the measurements line up if you were going for new ones.

 

[Adieu]

Re: Does old 70's-style GOTOH Les Paul hardware come IN BLACK? ...if so, where to buy

Thing is, Ash, I'm not sure it ended in the 70s... or began in the 70s. Or anything. I just know MINE's from the 70s lol. Hence the asking.

Smooth tuners? Is that the archetypical "Gotoh tuners" on superstrats and their Fender/Squier E-series cousin (not to be confused with the totally different AmStd Gotoh tuners)? Nah, got loads of those, ok with the original MIJs, relationship with knockoffs ranges from hate to acceptance, but they're tooootally wrong for a vintage LP, even if I am trying to Eclipse-ize it a bit... Which, now that I've caught myself saying it, would anyways probably best be done on an old Aria (ESP utterly ripped off that surprisingly awesome neck profile), and not on a rebadged Greco.

 

[Adieu]

Re: Does old 70's-style GOTOH Les Paul hardware come IN BLACK? ...if so, where to buy

PS lol I ****TOTALLY***** forgot the more relevant part of the info: these Gotohs are a version of the (also Gotoh) Greco/Ibanez "STAR TUNERS", just with Gotoh branding instead for installation on badge engineered guitars. Instead of a 3d stylized star on the gear cover on the back, they're flat & have a Gotoh logo.

...don't at all mind putting on Greco or Ibanez branded Gotohs if that's what it takes.

 

[Ashurbanipal]

Re: Does old 70's-style GOTOH Les Paul hardware come IN BLACK? ...if so, where to buy

Yeah, the Smooth Tuner/Gotoh SGM type came on many a superstrat. Can't say I care much for the Smooth Tuner variants, bit unresponsive. I do have a set of Gotoh branded ones coming my way, so am interested to see whether there's any difference.

Hm, now that you mention it, yours do appear to be the same as the star logo ones that came on 70s Ibanez, like the Rocket Rolls and Icemen.

Destroyer ones are different...well, same tuner I bet but different housing.

Anyway, I don't know anyone who would make repros of the ones you're interested in, especially in black. The best you could probably do is get black pegs... I think the originals came only in chrome and gold, and if you were to find a set for sale, someone's bound to be flogging them for stupid money.

 

[Adieu]

Re: Does old 70's-style GOTOH Les Paul hardware come IN BLACK? ...if so, where to buy

Gotoh SGMs are waaaay better than knockoffs... well, actually both the Gotoh-branded ones and the ones just marked "Made in Japan" on the back of each (apparently the same thing). Not that they're even all that necessary with toplocks, but they also don't weigh crazy much, which is also kinda nice.

As to flogging for stupid money, well, $hite - I looked up ebay.... it's almost making me sorry I like the guitar so much as-is. Parting her out, even just electronics and hardware and dumping the case, could gain me HALF A GRAND or more *over* what I paid for the guitar, leaving me with a sweet hulk of a body to rebuild and in the green even after buying new parts from any conceivable brand (heck, even PRS pups and German hardware). And it's actually quite believable, since mine's parts are in ridiculously better condition than what the pushers on ebay got.

If I ever get my hands on a second one, I might just do exactly that, but since I've only got one, nothing more drastic than swapping the neck pickup and dumping the dried-up potentiometers in her future... Then again, maybe not. And, after all, there are guitars that don't have anywhere near this much sentimental value that can pull in over a grand over price paid on parting out. Heck, I've got one whose CASE & TREMOLO *ARM* alone could pretty much make me break even.... Ebay is a frickin joke.


...concerning changing pegs, but the top part'll still poke up and out of the headstock in all its stainless glory. Wouldn't that look kinda crazy? Or, considering that these parts don't get touched except on string changes, can they be painted somehow??

 

[Ashurbanipal]

Re: Does old 70's-style GOTOH Les Paul hardware come IN BLACK? ...if so, where to buy

Yeah, some of those parts for older MIJ guitars cost ridiculous money. My Roadstar has a Pro Rock'r trem (seriously bad attempt to avoid Floyd patents) and I broke some bits on it when I was adjusting the radius and intonation - both screws for this pass through a single zinc alloy nut (wtf?), so no wonder; lesson: don't adjust this bridge under string tension. I ended up paying, as I didn't want to wait years for a trem husk that might/might not have them to turn up.

I suppose you could get the tuners anodized or something like that, but it wouldn't last forever, especially on the peg, which you're touching on a regular basis. I'm thinking of Buckethead's original LP, which had white anodized hardware, but the plating eventually began to wear off. Still, might be worth investigating.

 

[Adieu]

Re: Does old 70's-style GOTOH Les Paul hardware come IN BLACK? ...if so, where to buy

Yeah, some of those parts for older MIJ guitars cost ridiculous money. My Roadstar has a Pro Rock'r trem (seriously bad attempt to avoid Floyd patents) and I broke some bits on it when I was adjusting the radius and intonation - both screws for this pass through a single zinc alloy nut (wtf?), so no wonder; lesson: don't adjust this bridge under string tension. I ended up paying, as I didn't want to wait years for a trem husk that might/might not have them to turn up.

I suppose you could get the tuners anodized or something like that, but it wouldn't last forever, especially on the peg, which you're touching on a regular basis. I'm thinking of Buckethead's original LP, which had white anodized hardware, but the plating eventually began to wear off. Still, might be worth investigating.

Anodizing? Hmmm... I kinda like that idea. Sounds like very hardcore DIY indeed.

Yeah, heard those ProRockers were rather "uhm...yeah", seems even Japan needs a few fails before coming up with genius stuff. At least when the next generation, the Edge, costs $300, you're cringing at the cost of hitech quality parts - not at the pricing of fragile and hence low-supply high-demand out of print stuff...

Btw, I noticed you're from Australia? Could you explain me one thing - what the HELL is up with the prices in your country???? Our dollars are about even, right? And yet Australia often shows some of the world's highest price points for low to midend instruments, like you guys are behind the Iron Curtain or something??

 

[Ashurbanipal]

Re: Does old 70's-style GOTOH Les Paul hardware come IN BLACK? ...if so, where to buy

I think you'd have to get a shop to do it for you (jeweller maybe), it's a bit beyond the realm of general DIY! Unless you're proficient in plating and metalwork, of course.

Yes, they're bulky and unwieldy. Luckily Ibanez got smart quickly and paid for the Floyd patents. Well, a used Edge can be got for a good price with a bit of looking - I just got a black one that looks pretty much new for $130, complete with arm, studs, claw, and springs. Whatever guitar it was on barely got used.

Eh, so much that is imported gets slapped with various taxes, plus we have a general goods and services tax (GST) on everything. Then Australian retailers whinge about how everyone's buying over the internet - well no $hit, I'm not paying $800 for a MIK RG! Even factory Australian guitars (Maton & Cole Clark) are overpriced, thus in no way competitive with imports, and often have high resale; I've played a bunch of acoustics by both and found them pretty underwhelming. In any case, the audience for this industry is a lot smaller here than in Europe and the US. There is a fairly strong tradition of luthierie here though, and it's what I'd go for over a factory guitar.

We used to have tariffs long ago which protected Australian industry in general, so local stuff was good quality and less expensive; now it's all gone and everyone's become greedy for maximum profit at minimum cost.

 

[kramersteen]

Re: Does old 70's-style GOTOH Les Paul hardware come IN BLACK? ...if so, where to buy

Pretty much what the title says: Does old 70's-style GOTOH hardware come in black? ...if so, where to buy?

View attachment 40733

PS yeah, I'm looking for *these* exact Gotoh tuners... Not the newer strat-type Fender E-series/ESP/Ibanez-style Gotohs with holes at 4:30, but the big LP-style tuners with this exact hole pattern at 6 & 12 o'clock. And yes, MIJ please, not knockoffs. A bridge to match wouldn't hurt, too, also Gotoh MIJ and none of that TonePros crud.


Why? Well, thinking I possibly wanna update my old 70s Japanese LP Custom's looks a bit.... Also (and alas), I firmly believe that this sh*t effin RULES, cuz it does so darn well even after **40 YEARS**, so unless it costs some ungawdly 3-digit number each for tuners and tunamatic, I might be looking to put this on other guitars too, and I definitely don't wanna replace the stuff for something with inferior performance... Cuz it suuuuure beats the hell outta them slippery $39.99 Grovers (might've been good once upon a time, but not the crap today... the only thing they do reliably is induce neck dive) and holds up to a LOT more wear&tear than those flimsy TonePros bridges and their tendency to lose their finish and get scratched&chipped in just a couple years.

Also... I kinda like that they're made outta REAL stainless. Yep, stainless steel. Which, like all real stainless, picks up just a teeeeeny tiny bit of rust flecks after a few decades, but doesn't lose its lustre or its texture. And DEFINITELY doesn't flake off to expose powdered frickin zinc.

They look nice those old gotohs. I actually have a set in my parts box Just waiting for the right donor guitar.

 

[Adieu]

Re: Does old 70's-style GOTOH Les Paul hardware come IN BLACK? ...if so, where to buy

I think you'd have to get a shop to do it for you (jeweller maybe), it's a bit beyond the realm of general DIY! Unless you're proficient in plating and metalwork, of course.

Yes, they're bulky and unwieldy. Luckily Ibanez got smart quickly and paid for the Floyd patents. Well, a used Edge can be got for a good price with a bit of looking - I just got a black one that looks pretty much new for $130, complete with arm, studs, claw, and springs. Whatever guitar it was on barely got used.

Eh, so much that is imported gets slapped with various taxes, plus we have a general goods and services tax (GST) on everything. Then Australian retailers whinge about how everyone's buying over the internet - well no $hit, I'm not paying $800 for a MIK RG! Even factory Australian guitars (Maton & Cole Clark) are overpriced, thus in no way competitive with imports, and often have high resale; I've played a bunch of acoustics by both and found them pretty underwhelming. In any case, the audience for this industry is a lot smaller here than in Europe and the US. There is a fairly strong tradition of luthierie here though, and it's what I'd go for over a factory guitar.

We used to have tariffs long ago which protected Australian industry in general, so local stuff was good quality and less expensive; now it's all gone and everyone's become greedy for maximum profit at minimum cost.

Unwieldy? HECK NO. btw, I just removed them to clean em up, polish em a bit (simple cotton alcohol swabs), and break off some toothpicks in their mounting holes to get them super-tight again... guess what? All the rust flecks WIPED RIGHT OFF. Rock solid, light (yes light! lighter than grovers, at least), perfect shiny stainless steel finish, and looking like they were born yesterday after 40 years in service... IMMACULATE movement, too.

...bulky and unwieldy my posterior.

***EDIT: oh wait sorry, were you talking about the ProRocker trem? lol, my bad. "producing" Grolsch straplocks until 4 AM musta taken its toll.

As to used edge for $130 - I recently got an Ibanez 540 S Radius Pro MIJ '91 FujiGen Gakki (also known as "Sabre Custom Made" due to inlay - a precursor to the Ibanez Prestige mark, or faux-USA Ibanez Sabre due to the misleading neckplate), with hardcase, scary-fast Wizard neck w/ perfect frets, immaculate LoPro Edge, and 3 DMZ pups - for $200. So gawds yes, while the usual $300 for an Edge trem is worse, $130 kinda sucks too...

THEN AGAIN - reason I got it so cheap was that the old crackhead-turned-Jesus-freak selling it didn't know what it was, and had it on CL waaaay in the inland boondocks of California as an "RG 760" (lol). Seems like quite a few people made the trip and got pissed off when it was clearly not even an RG, but didn't realize how he made the mistake or that it was still worth heaps more than his asking and a really niiice guitar - instead, they probably thought he was trying to rip em off with some absurd Chinese fake.... But, nope, his was the honest mistake of Googling a) the name on the tremolo, b) the names printed on the pickups, and c) having crap vision and a crappier camera for CL pics, hence the inability to tell an RG from a Saber Radius Pro.

GODS I DO SO LOVE THE IGNORANT. The above LP Custom knockoff with the Gotoh tuners came from another such too-lazy-to-google-properly owner who'd apparently inherited it from someone. It's a Westminster-rebrand of a Matsumoku-made Ibanez/Greco model (#2398 or something like that, blonde-maple-fretboard bolton LP custom, mahogany pancake w/ mahogany cap, and 2x Super 70s pups) - came to me for $125, w/ hardcase. Well, actually, not quite true, more like I bought it for a friend using his $125, but then loved it so much I talked him into taking an LTD M307 w/ DiMarzio upgrade in trade for it instead. So yeah, I did pay only $125 for it - SCORE! - but then traded a guitar I'd paid $400 for as a teenager, plus put upgrades into... Honestly, though? Still soooo worth it! L)

 

[Ashurbanipal]

Re: Does old 70's-style GOTOH Les Paul hardware come IN BLACK? ...if so, where to buy

Yea, I was talking about the trem .

Deals can be had, it's true - have heard plenty of instances of people scoring things for $100-200. It's impossible here in Au - Craigslist and the like is pathetic. eBay is rarely a place for deals anymore. For a separate part in the condition it's in, I think I did as well as can be expected.

 

[Adieu]

Re: Does old 70's-style GOTOH Les Paul hardware come IN BLACK? ...if so, where to buy

Yea, I was talking about the trem .

Deals can be had, it's true - have heard plenty of instances of people scoring things for $100-200. It's impossible here in Au - Craigslist and the like is pathetic. eBay is rarely a place for deals anymore. For a separate part in the condition it's in, I think I did as well as can be expected.

Yeah, I remember stumbling across some Australian store's pricelist and going "ooookay, there goes my backup plan to say screw it all and move to Australia". Srsly.

...although, in hindsight, I've wondered if that maybe actually makes it the BEST place to be flipping guitars from, not the worst? Is your customs brutal or is it just that no one wants to ship and/or its expensive?? If customs can be navigated or dodged entirely on parcels, sounds like just THE place to run a two man international guitar-flipping operation. Got me a friend in Russia (another insane price point country) that we occasionally do this with to earn some change, works alright... Although the Russia-Japan teams are KILLING US on price and margin. As with all sorts of other cool stuff (best women, best food, best electronics, best crazy futuristic crap, best comics, best video games, best cartoons, etc etc etc), seems Japan yet again leads the pack for best impossibly cheap awesome used gear.

 

[Ashurbanipal]

Re: Does old 70's-style GOTOH Les Paul hardware come IN BLACK? ...if so, where to buy

I'm constantly trying to convince people I know who live overseas in poorer countries that Australia isn't as rosy as they think - tax, bills, rent, mortgage (if you've go one) bleed you dry (if you live in the city especially). They think I'm just exhibiting first-world-problem syndrome. It's a good country on the whole, but becoming stupidly expensive.

Shipping: well, you don't have to pay customs fee on items under $1000 in value, but having stuff shipped from elsewhere (i.e. Europe, US) is expensive, 'cos it's so frickin' far. USPS has size restrictions so a set neck guitar is impossible, you'd have to go EMS or something which is way more. So, the guitars I've bought over the internet have been reasonably good deals, but I have to pay at least another $100 for it to get here, even when it's bolt-on and neck can be removed; though my most recent acquisition only cost $75 to arrive.

I guess you could make a small profit from flipping, but you'd have to stick to the well known makes, as most people know Fender, Gibson, Ibanez, Jackson, ESP and that's about it (percentage of geeks who live on forums and have wider knowledge is small). The only Hamers (RIP) you could get were imports, and for many other makers (including the big ones), they have low-mid priced instruments in their inventory, less high end stuff (unless it's a LP or something), as people are arguably reluctant to fork out. Actually, there is a shop in town that has a US Hamer Standard (flame top, burst) – it's 3.7k, been there forever, they can't shift it. I suppose sometimes they stock these kinds of guitars to gauge reaction.

Also, when you inundate the market with low-mid stuff, it tends to colour perception about a brand. But yeah, Japan owns. When I was at school, my classical guitar teacher said to me if I wanted an awesome guitar, I should go to Japan, where I could get one for way less.

 

[Adieu]

Re: Does old 70's-style GOTOH Les Paul hardware come IN BLACK? ...if so, where to buy

Shipping: well, you don't have to pay customs fee on items under $1000 in value, but having stuff shipped from elsewhere (i.e. Europe, US) is expensive, 'cos it's so frickin' far. USPS has size restrictions so a set neck guitar is impossible, you'd have to go EMS or something which is way more. So, the guitars I've bought over the internet have been reasonably good deals, but I have to pay at least another $100 for it to get here, even when it's bolt-on and neck can be removed; though my most recent acquisition only cost $75 to arrive.

Familiar stuff. USA - Russia shipping is $80-120 usually by EMS... which, by the way, is USPS lol. Just two different tarrifs, and yeah, squeezing into the smaller one takes a minor miracle on an assembled guitar, you're generally some 2-5 inches over limits. On the up side, it's like a $10-20 difference only

Btw, a funnier thing about $20 differences is that the price for weight curve for EMS is veeeeeeeeeery nonlinear. Adding a second guitar to a box (bolton disassembled, declared as parts) only costs $20-30 more....but, unfortunately the curve loses its plateau and turns into a steep hill again, so like shipping a Marshall JCM head put me out an eye-watering $283.

Also, shipping really has nothing to do with things being frickin far or not... For example, urbanized compact (and physically closer!) Japan is almost twice as much to ship to/from than the more distant logistical nightmare of humongous Russia with its banged-up infrastructure, fun climate, and 9 timezones. It really seems just random.

Is that no customs <$1k some international treaty? Same identical thing with Russia.

All in all, can't say this Russia gig yet pays all the bills, but it gives me something to do when there's no work, and hey, now instead of me paying for GAS, GAS pays for itself, petrol, and a lotta other stuff sometimes. Also, I get the distinct pleasure of telling people "don't bother me I'm tryin to work here" while digging into the guts of a guitar to mod or tweak her. Which doesn't stop being a fun hobby even when you get paid for it.

My personal stance is - if it won't make $200 (or $150 if I'm seriously hurting for funds) per guitar, I don't bother with it. Too lazy, too slow... Record, I think I made $700-ish off customizing a Flying V with a unique decorative metal plate pickguard and custom pups, and flipping all the crap I got to keep out of the deal - the actives I pulled from her and the $100 case. Cases are reaaal nice to get an extra bit of cash, in reality, guitars with and without cases always sell for exactly the same, cause it's the second to last thing on anyone's mind at all. And active pickups? Basically liquid currency.

Hyperactive guys who don't mind shopping packing and shipping just to make $100-ish per axe can certainly pull in a lot more dough if they've got the energy and the motivation... well, that and the arithmetic skills not to miscalculate, cause short margins put you deep in the red pretty fast if you're sloppy.


PS you're surprised a $3.7 k Hamer ain't moving? it's just blisteringly expensive is all, doesn't matter if it's good or not or how good it is... in a world amidst an economic nightmare, and one where technological progress on one hand and sellers poverty on the other interplayed to give us realistically stage-worthy guitars for $150-250, it just takes a lotta convincing someone that they need a $3700 guitar. Don't know about Australia, but America's spending threshold is currently $500. You can just see it by how guitars sit there for months or years in the local CL for 600-700 with no movement, and then instantaneously disappear at 500 (think Gibson Vees, ESP Eclipses, Fender Americans). There are some guitars that have been on the market so long I ritualistically offer $500 for them every year. And every year, the price slowly creeps down towards that $500 target.