1984 Thunder I-A, damaged (Ebay UK)

1980'S WESTONE THUNDER I-A 1-A GUITAR JAPAN PROJECT - £40 Current Bid

Classed as spares or repair project, it's got a crack running from the bass side of the neck from the nut and passes under the 1st fret. It might a easy repair if someone is up for it.

Everything seems to be still there including the proper brass control knobs for the active model. The brass nut has gone and strangely this one is missing it's brass saddles.

DAN.

Seller got £72 for this one.

DAN.

It was my £72.

Hoping the saddles and bridge wont matter too much, and hoping most of all that the neck will only need a touch of glue. Fingers crossed.

I play in a covers band so to have a guitar that can do so many different sounds/tones is useful!

I look on Ebay every payday for one of these guitars, just need to find another broken one with the brass saddles and nuts on it

Not arived this could all be false optimism.

Dodgecuk wrote:...Hoping the saddles and bridge wont matter too much, and hoping most of all that the neck will only need a touch of glue...

Hi, welcome, and congrats on getting this Thunder.
It's the same age as mine and I can tell you that if it originally had a barrel saddle bridge you ain't missing anything! They really are problematic and were quickly replaced by Matsumoku. So that's likely the reason for the current bridge and I wouldn't loose sleep over it.

As for the brass nut? Too bad it's gone, and it would likely be easier to make a replacement part than find an original replacement. In a pinch you might try a steel nut to get that sharper sound; most if not all Danelectro models come with them. Might be worth a look see.

As I look at the neck pix I think I'm seeing that the crack is confined to only the top maple piece. It does not look to be affecting the remaining 4 laminates. It needs fixing but it should be relatively easy compared with trying to repair a totally fractured neck.

All in all she looks pretty good...just a bit of spit and polish and she'll be good as new! Good luck with the restoration, and don't forget to post some pix!

Hi Dodgecuk and welcome to Westone suffers anonymous!

If you want to put brass saddles on I'm sure you can buy them somewhere but I wouldn't sweat it, I don't think they make a huge difference tonally speaking. A word of warning though, never let go of them brass knobs, they ALWAYS go missing? (Barry has a theory about monkeys stealing them but don't get him started, he doesn't have any proof yet )

My brother has a guitar with a similar neck crack to this which we've been repairing. The positive thing with this neck break (if there is such a thing) is the string pressure pulls it shut.

When we repaired my bro's guitar (an Epi SG Custom) we held the apart the break and used an aerosol duster to blow any crap out, you will probably need to remove the nut to get the break.

used some Titebond and pushed in to the crack using a thin piece of plastic then strung up the guitar with a couple of old strings on the high and low 'E' positions.

We put a 6mm bit of wood on the fret board behind the first fretwire to act as a temporary nut, wound the strings tight and close up the break then let it set. Job done, no fancy clamps or jigs!

DAN.

Great stuff thanks for taking a look Barry. Cetainly will get some up when done.