Looking for my old Concord III, or one of its sisters !

Hi there

The blurry bits of old photographs below are about all I have left of my old Westone Concord III.

All together now ... all say 'Awwwwwww'

I bought it new at Xmas 1983 and kept it only till the Summer of '85, when, mainly because the trem thread was a bit stripped which caused the arm to impact the pots, I PX'd it for an Ibanez Roadstar in Musical Exchanges in Birmingham (what a dusty old musical mecca that place once was for used gear!)

It was one of the 'new shape' Concords introduced late in 1983 where the angular shape was eased out a bit, and was one of the later style before the Concord ST and stuff came in which transitioned into the 'Spectrum' series.

It's as per version 3 on this page: http://www.westone.info/concord3.html

When it left my hands, apart from the aforementioned stripped trem, the only mark on it was a small eggshell impact on it's lower hip, caused by my gigback hitting the kerb on the way to school back in '83 ...doh

It had a characteristic 'dog-leg' streak in the grain on the fretboard which can be seen in the pic.

Do I remember the serial number ? Double doh



...and yeah, I could play things other than a G barre chord *chuckles*

This seems like the best place to post a note on this, would love to find one the same, or by some bizarre twist of fate, locate the actual guitar itself !

cheers !

Dave

Totnes, UK

Umm, oooohh!!

And good luck with your quest, brother - did you see that Concord III on ebay last week? It turned a few heads, let me tell you including mine and I'm a Spectrum/Phoenix man!! Anyway, nice wee story, and I'm picking that you'd be another "more mature" person??!

Whoooooo! Things are getting pretty scary around here now!

Dave, your photos have disappeared! They were there earlier because I saw them!

Have any of you chaps noticed anything else spooky around here lately? A few of the posts from the past couple of days have disappeared too! And before anyone says anything; it wasn't me!

Good luck with the quest!

Pauline :flower: :queen:

Mmmmmm they are sort of there but they keep struggling to load, just get partial bits.....

My money is on the pic hosting company being overloaded, but getting some weird behaviour with page loading with the Net generally just lately...DNS attack ?

Mind you, when I hit quote or reply and stuff keep seeing a lot of HTML tags in the form which would normally be hidden, hmmm ?

Mmmm yeah I guess I'm 'more mature' lol, over 40 now. Only III's I've seen on eBay lately are that orange H-III and the older cream one which is on there currently ... did I miss a peach ?

cheers !

Dave

Phew! They are back!

I think the cyber-gremlins have been working overtime again. I was getting a lot of HTML too and my smilies went all dodgy as well but that seems to have sorted itself out now!
All this modern technology does my head in at times but I do have to be thankful for some of it, otherwise I wouldn't be here now and I wouldn't have made so many good friends! You guys are the best!

Anyway, that's enough from me going way off topic, and I'm the one who ought to know better!

I don't think that I've ever actually seen a Concord III on eBay until that one came up the other day.

Hey you can play barre chords! I wish I could but my hands are too little and I've got a wonky finger!

You never know Dave, somebody out there might own your old guitar and spot this post! I'll keep my fingers crossed for you!

Pauline :flower: :queen:

Hi guys, sorry been behind radio silence, busy life, moving house and all that ..

Well, look'ee what I've found :

Whoopee!

And yeah I got in touch and bought it for a fair price (Well, I just had to didn't I, c'mon !)

Not sure if it is my 'actual' guitar (though can't wait to find out !) but it's identical and in great condition for it's age. Been searching for one of these for two decades now .. result

So ... can anyone point me in the direction of a replacement (preferably gold plated) Concord 3 whammy bar ? Now there's another challenge !

Will post piccies, when it gets here !

Cheers (and bounces up and down excitedly for good measure!)

Dave

If the "fair price" you paid was the £50 at the top of the ebay listing I'd be bouncing up & down too!

Nah, sadly not, heh heh, paid £150, which is about on a par with stuff like the H-III which was on here last year. It looks to be in good nick and it's been a long long wait to get even a whiff of one, not even 'seen' another one since I abandoned my old one in the shop for PX back in 1985 (silly me) !

Sounds like the trem arm might pass muster for now that's with it, but will be nice to get an original though

Dave

Hello Dave,

Nice work there mate, well done!

Now you don't need me to remind you, BUT... don't forget to put some photies up in the 'Members Westones' forum when you get it!

I'm sure if you ask Wayne (our resident metal guru) nicely, he might oblige you with the said trem arm. If not, David has (or had?) some trem arms in the spares section at Westone.info.

Speaking of Wayne, (sorry to hi-jack your thread a bit here Dave) I have finally just bought some of those fantastic brass knobs that he makes, and I can tell you guys who haven't already got some, that they are the dog's doodah's! Thanks again mate!

Pauline :flower: :queen:

Oh, believe me, it will have a thorough checkup, clean and MOT when I get it, and then it will have a photo session, just for you guys !

I sure am feeling a little ... impatient ... right now

Dave

totnesdave wrote:I sure am feeling a little ... impatient ... right now

...oh, we ALL know THAT feeling, mate ...

Yay, it arrived, just had a very fun couple of hours giving it an overhaul and TLC.

It is not my original guitar (that would have been spoooky but you never know!) however it's memorably identical.

Not bad condition, kind of softly relic'd I would say, a fair few dings and knocks in the paint and scratching up on the plastic ware, but not so visible from a distance, it's had a fairly busy working 25 years I would say, some gentle corrosion and the like, some wear on the frets and nut, but it's playing nicely at the moment. I restrung it with my usual Ernie Ball 9-42 and sorted out all the intonation, pickup heights etc, and turned my attention to the tremelo, which had been locked down flat to the body and screwed up tight. I decided to refloat it which was the usual cabaret of springs, screws and tuning. It was really tight at first, so I un-tensioned everything again and undid all the fulcrum screws, lubricated with a bit of chapstick and refloated using just the two outside screws as a pivot, much better now ! I think the fulcrum screws had actually been screwed tight too when the trem was locked up. The arm supplied fits nicely and looks like it may even be a Westone arm to be honest.

I find a lot of pressure on the D string from the second string tree and hence pinging when using the trem, despite lots of chapstick under the tree face of those early 50's Fender style trees, but it's just a very tight angle to the machine head. I'll either leave it out of its tree, or fit a spacer I think to relieve the friction.

I set it up with a nice slinky low action, plays very easily and responsively, a very 'pumped Strat' kind of sound, sort of SRV like.

My wife wants to learn and has small hands, thus its shallow neck may be ideal for her !

Now to try and host some piccies and get them in the gallery for you

cheers

Dave