Newbie to Westones

Hello all,
firstly i'd like to say that i dont actually play guitar but i'm learning, my partner is teaching me. I decided that i would learn better if i had my own, i'm in a house surrounded by guitars the latest of which are a Les Paul custom bought by my partner & a Fender stratocaster (Baja) which we bought for my sons 18th birthday. So anyway, i looked on ebay & saw one which despite its battered state I immediately fell in love with, i put over 50 guitars in my watched items but still kept returning to this one, it turns out to be a Westone thunder 111 1981 model, never heard of them neither had my partner who has been into & played guitars for around 30 years. i googled these guitars which is how i found this forum & even though knowing parts etc would be near on impossible to get my hands on i am now the proud owner of this poor thing, but i love it! Anyhooo that is my story so far & i hope i will be welcome to pop in here occasionally to pick your brains. If you people have been looking for Westones on ebay, you will have seen it, the one with a broken neck

Hello again Flynny,

No problems about posting in here, it gets pretty confusing when you've never been on a forum before - Listen to ME, I sound like I've been doing this for years! Who am I kidding? I still get muddled up!

Anyway, back to your Thunder III, I was watching the auction with interest but it went a bit above my limit.

Have you got it yet and how bad is the damage to the neck? Do you think that it is repairable? Looking at the photographs, it looked like a pretty poor repair job had been done on it and I wondered if with a bit of patience and know how, whether it could be fixed enough to make it less noticeable.

It will be interesting to see how you go about tackling it so don't forget to put lots of photos in the Members Westones forum, of the work in progress please!

Pauline :flower: :queen:

Thanks Pauline, i'm hoping to pick it up on Monday i asked how it got damaged & if there was any damage to the headstock, he told me that the strap failed & it hit the floor but no damage to the headstock itself, remains to be seen eh? Anyway i agree the fix job he did already is a pretty poor one, i'm fairly sure i can do better myself (i hope those words dont choke me) I'll let you know more about the condition when i get it, got quite a job on my hands i think but i'm sure i'll enjoy the challenge. There is another one on ebay which i'm sure you've seen, the Thunder 1, its a beauty i just love the wood grain on these guitars.

Hi Flynny,

Mmm? Sounds a bit suspect to me! It seems odd that there was no damage to the headstock; if that is what actually happened!

Sounds like a nice job to take on, right up my street!

Oh, the Thunders are beautiful aren't they? I've just had to part with one and it had the most unusual wood grain on it, it was beautiful!

It would appear that you have got the BUG already, commonly known around these parts as GAS! I'm afraid that once you get it though, there is no known cure!

Pauline :flower: :queen:

Hi Flynny,

I too was watching your Thunder but saw it was going beyond what I was willing to pay. Shame really, I dont live far from him in the first place. Still, I have got 3 Thunders already 1a / 2 / 2a and they really are fantastic guitars and lifes little gems, so go on, enjoy yourself.

Dependent where you live, I can recommend two places in Coventry to have the break professionally looked at. Let us know the progress.

Have fun

Steve

Hi it's flynny again,
just an update on my Thunder 111 (called Buster after my dog, when i picked him, he was the runt of the litter too)
When i got it home it was rather grubby, old dirt tucked in all corners, around pick ups etc, the break you saw on the neck was actually on both sides, the guy i bought it from had actually made a better job of fixing it than i thought, it was just very untidy looking. The headstock itself is fine, neck beautifully straight (amazing eh?) but the nut was poorly fitted, you could see daylight through it. So i cleaned it up, my partner restrung it with bright wiresplugged it in and played, what a beast! The range of sound is pretty amazing. The biggest problem with it is that it has quite high action probably due to the nut being all out, so i've take it to our local guitar shop where we've been many times for various things, the guy there seemed impressed by it but was also worried about the crack, he also said though that it had been well fixed but a shame it looked so messy, anyway, he's taking out the nut and filing down what we think might be a mess of glue pushing it up from the fix job, might need a new nut and he's redressing the frets too and fitting a new socket for the lead, So i'm keeping fingers crossed that i'll be getting it back and in good working order soon. I think i was a little adventurous for my first project but i do love it. By the way, thanks Steve for your offer of help and yes Pauline, i'll try to get a photo on here when its all fixed.

Hello Flynny,

Tell Buster to get well soon and I hope that he makes a full recovery. :flower: These Thunders are very resilient and I'm sure that he will be on the mend very soon!

We are all looking forward to seeing him when he's back on his feet and up and running again!

Pauline :flower: :queen:

Hi Flynny, a

Just looking through my saved Favorites on MS Explorer and remember this gem. Shows how to fix a broken neck !!!

http://home.asparagine.net/ant/blog/?cat=9

For any one else who is restoring a Westone, I had a good chat with The Luthier, John at Noise works in Coventry. I was looking to have some work done on the Dimension and here is what he said : Most electric guitars inc Westones ( expect Gibsons : Nitro) are finished in ... wait for it ... polyester. For the Dim body, he would re-dye the orginal maple, put a thin coat of red on to highlight the grain, and a red tinted polyester lacquer. Oh yes says I, and where can I get some of this polyester. Errr, you have order it in tins, mix it with an accelerator and catalyst, and then you have just 8 mins to spray it before it turns to jelly. On the finished article cut back with 800 / 1200 grit paper ... a bit of a chore apparently.

How ever, he did say that Brian May, on his red special, used Rustins Cold Cure ( no, not for flu). However, I did speak to Rustins and they said that I would have to be careful with the painted coat to avoid a reaction. So, how did Mr May do it? I gather that Rustins would good for natural guitars ie Thunders.

Below is a link to a guy do a good job building an LP from scratch and using Rustins. He has also done a great job of sunbursting the top.

http://www.setchellguitars.co.uk/ant/blog/?page_id=23

Keep well

Steve

Hi again, sorry i havent been in for so long but you know how life is. Just a quickie to let you know that my Westone is all repaired and works beautifully, the neck looks rough but amazingly the damage has no effect on the play. It has so much power and the sustain is unbelieveable, my partner reckons its as good if not better than the sustain on his Les Paul custom, the range of sounds & tones is very impressive, just need to learn to play now hehe. Anyway this was just a quick visit and i hope to get back with photos at some point, wishing you all a great Christmas & New year, take care.

Good for you, chook!! Well done! Um, are you gonna show this beast or are you just gonna tease us with it?!

Well hi again,
sorry for being such a slacker but i'm here again, not been up to much interesting as i've had hip replacement (yep, old git!) But i'm back and hopefully going to finally learn to play my westie now i can sit in some kind of comfort, also being told by my partner that i should get around to posting a pic of Buster, i just want to sand the rough edges to display him in full glory. It's a shame to own such a beautiful guitar and not be able to play it and show it to enthusiasts, please watch this space and be patient, it WILL be shown before i can play Would it be an offence to show the family guitars? Take care & be back soon.

Looking forward to that.. welcome aboard.

Steve777 wrote:...http://home.asparagine.net/ant/blog/?cat=9
http://www.setchellguitars.co.uk/ant/blog/?page_id=23

Thanks for those links Steve. Great info there!

flynny wrote:...i've had hip replacement...Would it be an offence to show the family guitars?

Hi flynny, welcome to the nut house!
Sorry to hear about yer hip, but those operations have a very high success rate and I expect you'll be on yer feet rockin' in no time!

As for a guitar choice, you've chosen wisely Grasshopper.
I just picked up a Thunder IA last fall and it's just an awesome guitar! What a range of tones.

As for showing non-Westone guitars, sure we'd love to see what's lurking in yer house. But you might want to post them in the Non-Westone forum.
Meantime, let's see Buster!