After my blog about that amazing Yamaha SA-30 (that lasted about 15 mins in the shop) the other day I thought I'd post this blog about the very similar Guyatone SG-25T.
As I mentioned in that blog I LOVE this shape for a hollow body. I had an Emperador in this shape also and I just love those slightly turned in horns.
So, here it is again. That amazing semi hollow body shape with another name on the headstock. I'm a huge fan of Guyatones as I've said in many previous blogs and I really love these early seventies ones.
Although these weren't actually made by Guyatone, but subcontracted out to a couple of factories after the original demise of Tokyo Sound in '69. Most Guyatones were made for Guyatone by either Uni Musical Instruments & Kyushin Musical Instruments, both of who made an excellent product and manufactured some the best quality Guyatones throughout the seventies, but it is believed these particular bodies were made by Nippon Gakki.
This guitar is EXACTLY the same shape as the Yamaha (it was their shape designed in 1966) and actually shares some hardware but the big difference here is, of course the bolt on neck. The body construction is very similar except these have a bridge block under the bridge whereas the Yamaha has rails running the length of the body under the top. This has the same double bound laminated body with bound F holes with a slightly different shaped heel to accommodate the bolt on neck.
The neck is SUPER thin and so nice. It's one the things I love about some of this period Guyatones. These necks are Mosrite thin although slightly wider and they of course have that great zero fret.
The tuners are original and are those great tuners like my old SG-42 and my Excetro Mosrite copy and Honey Ric copy. This has the branded metal trussrod cover and neck plate like all Guyatones from this period.
The pickups are this Guyatone are one of my favourites based on a P-90 that look like a Mosrite single coil. They're the same ones as in my pink LG-150 and sound great in everything they're in. They're a little "boomier" in the hollow bodies but still have a nice sparkle and bite.
Unlike the Yamaha this has a three way switch, two volumes and a tone pot but with the switch on the middle position each volume can be used individually giving a similar effect to the Balance knob on the Yamaha. The output jack is on the same large rectangular plate as the Yamaha except, of course, branded Guyatone here.
The roller bridge is identical to the Yamaha unit and is a very nice piece of engineering. The vibrato is one of the many designs based on the simple Bigsby wrapover style as used on many Japanese guitars throughout the 60's and 70's and like all the hardware on this guitar is well made with good chrome plating.
This is in great all original condition and everything works REALLY well. It really is a joy to play this with it's thin neck and great sounding pickups, and I REALLY do love this shape.
