What Westone guitar is this?

Hi,

15 years ago I purchased a Westone guitar as my first guitar. I loved it! It was used and very cheap but it played beautifully. Now your all going to hate me for this but during my teenage years I decided to customize it. I changed the pickups and I repainted it including sanding the Westone details off of the head stock! I wish I never did this believe me!
However I recenty went up into the loft and pulled it out with the intention of restoring it.
Now the reason I am posting here is that I have forgotten what model it is The serial on the back of the headstock is 4121460. I have looked around on the net looking at all the old westone models but mine is just not there! If someone said the name I would remeber but its just not on any list!
http://www.easypcworkshop.co.uk/images/westone.JPG
http://www.easypcworkshop.co.uk/images/westoneneck.JPG

The pickups are active pickups with two humbuckers and a single coil.

I'd love somebody to help me re-identify this guitar.

Thanks
Mark

The serial number dates it to 1984, and that's a Spectrum body style, but it has the older Concord style headstock. Only one model of Spectrum was made in '84; the Spectrum-III.

Yeah thats definatly it
At first I thought Spectrum didnt sound right but I guess thats just my bad memory showing!

Thanks alot for the help

Good luck in restoring it! Unless you have the original pickups stowed away somewhere, they might be difficult to find, but plenty of users here can give you restoration tips and most of the hardware should be available from the Spares page on Westone.info.

Warrn wrote:Good luck in restoring it!

What he said!
As an owner of 2 Spectrums I'm fairly safe in assuming that underneath all that, um, customising, you're gonna find a fantastic guitar! They are by far the most playable guitar I own, and it'll be well worth the effort to restore it.

Don't hesitate to ask the knowledgeable folks here for help. They're a great bunch.
And please! Post pictures of your progress for we slobbering perverts in the peanut gallery!

Thanks alot guys.
I do feel incredibly embarassed posting those pics of my unique customization
I will certainly keep you posted of my progress

Thanks again

Hi Mark,

I was thinking about your "project" guitar and what I would do with it. Firstly, you say the pickups are active. What do you mean? Does your guitar have a battery to power an installed booster circuit? Secondly, it would of been painted either Blue burst or Silver tone (a sort of bronze). Do you want return it original?

My thoughts for what they are worth (and taking into account cost) would be to strip the guitar right down. Carefully draw out the wiring diagram and remove every thing. Store in boxes with labels. Take notes as you do it for future reference.

That leaves you the body and neck. Remove the neck.

Now we know that the body was made from Alder, a great tone wood blessing many strats and teles. However, unlike Basswood and Poplar, Alder can have great subtle figuring. Have look at this link

http://www.edroman.com/customshop/wood/alder.htm


So my first point of call would be to remove all the paint and stickers and get down to the original wood. This will be hard work especially as the original laquer finish was polyester !!!!

Now, you would probably have to do all of the above anyway to get a smooth finish for paint, so exposing the grain is a plus. You may find that the grain is outstanding and that several coats of danish oil and beeswax floats your boat. Alternatively, you may find that the graining is so boring or not to you liking and therefore you are going to go the paint route.

Exposing the wood grain and finishing in oil is something that very pleasing, costs little, and can be refinished later without too much trouble. Furthermore, there is no skill required .... just a smooth surface.

The paint route is more complicated with multiple finish options and spraying skill required to get a good finish. My local luthier would charge up to £250-300 to finish your guitar in paint and polyester. Polyester turns to jelly in the spray gun within 15-30 mins !!

Instead, I took my Genesis II to a local car sprayers who I knew well. Not only did I have to match the original Westone paint to car manufacturers paint charts, it ws also two tone. Not knowing which colour was original on your particular guitar, I cant advise. But a single solid colour will be cheaper overall and if laquered in 2 pack will be durable, probably more than nitro.

Lets us know how you get on

Regards

Steve

Hey - nice Spectrum. I like it, bullet holes, hard miles and all.

The body on my x70 was festooned with stickers as well, and some nasty hack marks from someone's attempt to get rid of one or two even more ancient - and I think I'm the third or fourth owner.

Anyway, some of these old axes have seen a lot of "living". As long as she plays well and you can find the old pickups, well you are more than 75% home. There are some on this board that may be able to help you in reapplying the brandname and insignia on the headstock - dig around a bit!

All the best,

Ian

Hiya, bro - first off, don't you worry 'bout turning up here with an instrument that you've customised as a young fella; we've all done it and my 'customisation' as a youngster was a '58 Telecaster which I basically destroyed!! Ah well....

Anyway, that looks reasonably complete, really - you just need another pick-up for the bridge possy and you're away! I'm picking that it's an MMK45 and they turn up reasonably often on the auction sites so keep your eyes peeled if restoring it to OEM is your bag; otherwise any h/b will do at a pinch! It has to be said, in all honesty, that modern boutique pickups like Nailbombs shade the MMK's but the mass produced p'ups don't really offer that much more than Matsumoku did 20+ years ago!!

The original paintwork will be awkward to get right if you're gonna go that way, but as Steve said, get friendly with your local car painter; they really do good work and some really get into doing this type of thing and will be able to offer advice that is priceless in terms of paint types and finishes. Te logo is no problem, our beloved moderator has a line on a bloke who does water-slide transfers; I've used these on my custom strat and they are very good indeed so all we need is a good scan of the headstock with the dimensions of the decal and you're away laughing.

Anyway, the first order of business is to decide how deep you wanna get with this - restoring guitars is highly addictive, and great fun! - if complete resto is your chosen option then Steve is spot on; strip it down completely and start from there, making note of the wiring (super important in these as they have pull pots - I take photos of my wiring these days! - but don't be too worried as there are diagrams at Westone.info and there are enough clued up bods in here to help should things go pear-shaped!

Personally, these days - and I'm an old bastard these days! - I prefer to get my restorations as close as possible to original but there's absolutely nothing stopping you making this your very own with a custom paint job etc.; let us know what you're gonna do and we'll help as much as we can... not forgetting to take lots of pix as this unfolds to show us.... we're sad, pathetic creatures who thrive on pix of other peoples' guitars!!

Go for it fella.


I'm an old bastard too now. !!

However I cant decide myself whether to restore to original or
to customise. I've only done one recently, a Westone Thunder 1a, which I
just stained a bit darker than original and then oiled.(put new circuitry and pots in though). There's a thread on it in 'members' westones' ....

On the subject of pick ups I have a Spectrum in original black, (also viewable in the abovementioned thread...) I've not had to do anything to it..but a friend who plays in a band or two was telling me that it would sound great with some new humbuckers. I think it sounds great as it is though withthe originals in.

On the subject of customisation here's a link to Dave Brock (of Hawkwind)'s Westone and other guitar customisations... I'm sure there must be better shots on the net somewhere..

http://www.starfarer.net/gtrstuff.html

Should our esteemed moderator be along ahe may be pleased to see one of them is a PAduak.. !

I believe the PAduak was auctioned off sometime ago but I'm pretty sure I saw him playing the Spectrum at a festival about a month ago ..

Some great links and advice there guys, much appreciated!
Now the whole reason I decided to go about restoring her was after I spent a weekend reading up on guitar restoration, and your not wrong about it being addictive. I havent even really started but I am itching to go the whole hog on this one! The plan is to do a whole lot more guitars after this one if all goes well

The guitar was originally a metallic green / silver / grey colour and I think it might be possible to get a pretty good match or maybe I will go for a flatter colour such as black. I might even look at the blue burst colour. I feel it might be tricky to repaint the neck if I choose I different colour :S But I havent really decided wether to go original or not yet.
As for the pickups, the single coil is an original but the bridge pickup is a seymour duncan PGNJ I fitted years ago. It all depends when I get over to my parents house and IF I can find the box with the original pickups in, otherwise I might pick out some new pickups.
Ofcorse I have absoloutly no intention of selling her, I have full intention of playing her as she plays so beautifully, and as there is such a small chance of ever getting it back to its original form so I am favouring a colour and pickups of choice really.
Now the wiring is a complete mess, a full rewire is the only option, but I have wired a few guitars before so I am confident this wont be to tricky.

I will certainly keep a diary with photos on the project and I will keep you posted.
Thanks for the great advice and info

Good lad! The decals for the headstock won't be too onerous to get done; my custom ones look OK, eh..



...and my pick for the colour, if you don't go for original, would be blueburst; it really does it for me!!



Keep us posted and if you have any questions, then fire away and we'll see if we can't help!

Color is obviously up to you, since it's your choice, but I hope you don't mind if I vote for "anything that isn't black". Eye-searing yellow with stickers is better than black to me.

I'm sure this happens to alot of people, but now the body has been sanded down to a Alder wood finish I am kinda liking it I think I will go for this finish.
Any tips on what treatments to use? Thoughts on a slightly darker dye for the wood?

Also I am concerned about how to work the neck. Is it a case of being VERY carefull and masking off the fretboard and sanding around it? (not that masking tape will withstand the sanding :S) There is very little information about this on the net.

Thanks

Edit:
Found this guide http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/removal.htm
Any tips on doing this? or is this a good idea to attempt? I would buy a cheap ebay neck to attempt this on first

Hello Mrk79uk and welcome!

Sorry for not responding to your posts earlier but I must have missed this one. Anyway, good work on doing the restoration.

Tips:

Firstly, if you want a darker natural finish, I would recommend going for one of the Colron coloured Danish oils - I used a mahogany coloured one on my Clipper Six. The nice thing about those oils is that they still let the grain show through but give a much deeper richer tone to the finish. As for sanding the neck, I don't have any qualms about doing them and go straight in there with a detail sander and finish off with a sponge type sanding block, no need to go to the extremes of removing the fretboard. I have a wee book which might be useful to you and I will happily send to you if you PM me with your email address.

Logos - As you can see from Johns' custom made logos, the guy does an excellent job. I'll PM you with his details but you will need an accurate image with measurements for him to work from, which I'm sure somebody in here will be able to provide for you.

Good luck and keep us posted!

Polly :queen: :flower:

Totally agree with Polly. I danish oiled the neck on my Genesis and it came up like glass. However, the wood will darken the moment you apply any finishing product, even natural without a dye. A good way of seeing what it might look like with an oil with out a dye is to gently wipe the body with a cloth with some white spirit on. The wood will light up like a TV screen. You will need to wipe the body before finishing anyway to remove any dust residue.

If you decide to use an oil with a dye, you might need to experiment or have a gander at the Coloron website

With regards to the neck, just get in there with your sander and use a very fine paper to finish with.

One point though, is there anything of the old transfer left to to scan? Hey Polly, does your man keep a record of previous transfers? If not, someone here might have to scan and measure their own.

I am afraid there is nothing left at all of the original transfer Thanks for the help on this, I have the contact from Polly (thanks again) and once I get to that stage I will get in touch with him.

Back to the sanding of the neck, I realize this is a pretty big job, and not ideal for the ammature. I am feeling pretty confident and will give this a lot of patients and take my time to get it spot on.
However the fretboard still concerns me Where it joins to the neck it is a very smooth finish and I am worried about getting a perfect straight line with the sanding. I am pretty sure I will not sand over the neck and on to the fretboard but the very edge of the fretboard might get a little sanded, so I may have to sand the whole edge and treat it. Is this ok to do?

Yep; as long as you're a little circumspect and don't really, really dig in with 40 grit or similar you'll do no harm.