Tao Guitars T-Bucket Zaiko 2022 Wine Red / Tortoise

This listing is for a beautiful Tao Guitars T-Bucket, hand built by luthier duo John and Serge of Tao Guitars based in Brussels-Belgium.

The T-Bucket is Tao's nod to Leo Fender's Telecaster, but with some more modern features such as a contoured body, 1 11/16" nut width and a 12" fingerboard radius. The body is built out of light weight Swamp Ash with a trapezoid shaped inlaid pick-guard made from real single-ply Italian Celluloid.

The neck is built from roasted 1/4"sawn flame maple for extreme durability and resonance. This is one of those guitars that you know is something special as soon as you pick it up. It blooms even unplugged like an acoustic, with ghostly artifacts and notes that leap off the fret-board. This T-Bucket is fitted with an ABM 2-point trem, that has a fully routed out tremolo cavity. This allows the player to not only be able to push downward on the trem, but also allows for extreme upward motion. This guitars vibrato allows the player to pull up two whole steps on most strings without bottoming out. The setup is perfection, with a nice low action of 3 & 4 64ths of an inch at the 12th fret high E to low E.

The pickups used in this T-Bucket are hand wound "Double-D" splitable humbuckers by Benedetti Pickups with handmade aluminum covers by Tao. They are asymmetrically wound Humbuckers that can be split into true Single Coils, without any perceived volume drop. When in hum-bucking mode they deliver a beautiful mid-output PAF-like tone but with more sparkle and clarity. When they are split they sound much like a Tele or Strat style pickup mixed with some Gold-Foil airiness. They are uniquely voiced, yet familiar. Both single coil and humbucker enthusiasts will love this set of pickups. Since each pickup is splitable via separate pots (one on the volume pot one on the tone pot) you can mix and match the two pickups anyway you'd like to in the middle position.

The neck on this guitar is a dream. It is slightly wider than most Fender-style guitars with it's 1 11/16" nut width, making it easy to fingerpick or flat-pick. The neck has a Chunky Medium C-shape to it, with some nice heft. The fretwork is impeccable as always with Tao.

With the way Tao frets their necks, you can not see or feel the tangs from the side of the neck, as they are cut to size and then put in from the top of the fingerboard. This way they will never begin to protrude and become sharp on the sides with changes in humidity. Tao also uses their "Progressive Fretting" system on this particular T-Bucket. This is where the frets get increasingly thinner as you travel up the fingerboard past the 12th fret, to avoid cramping while doing complex chords. This Tao is also one of the more rare long-scale models. Instead of a 24 & 3/4" scale it has a 25.25" scale, just slightly shorter than a Fender Tele, to give the strings a little bit more slack. This scale length also places the pickups in the optimal harmonic positions.

Between the finish work, where you can feel and see the wood grain, the versatile hand-wound pickups, lightweight balanced feel (seated or standing) and the inspiring fully routed out trem cavity, you can't go wrong with this beauty. Plus the tortoise guard, side dots and back plate all bring something classy and new to the mix.


Specs:

Color: Dark Wine Red
Body: Lightweight Swamp Ash


Neck: 1/4" sawn European Flame Maple


Nut: Hand Cut Bone


Nut Width: 1 11/16" 


Neck Shape: Chunky C .86" - .96"


Scale Length: 25.25"


Fingerboard: Indian Rosewood Slab-Board
Fingerboard Radius: 12"


Tuners: Gotoh Vintage Locking


Bridge: ABM 5200 w/ Steel Saddles


Pickups: Benedetti Double D Humbuckers (Splitable) 


Controls: Volume & Tone w/ Push-Pull Pots For Individual Coil
 Splitting, 3-way Selector Switch 


Fretting: Tao Custom Fretting


Frets: Medium Height, Nickel/Silver (like a 6105, but slightly thinner and a
 tad bit shorter)


Side Dots: Tortoise inside of Silver, Oval
Pickguard: Tortoise / Italian Celluloid
Weight: 7lbs 2oz


Case: Mono Vertigo, Semi-Hard Protective Gig Bag

 (Black)
Case Candy: COA & Handmade Truss Rod adjustment tool built from the same 
maple as the neck