Westone prestige 150 tail piece

Hi

After 26 years my precious prestige 150 is in need of some tlc, I've tried all my local guitar techs with no joy and are hoping you guys in the westone community can help me out please.

The guitar is exactly like this one
http://forum.westoneguitars.net/t1167-my-pantera-x275-and-prestige-150

The tailpiece has snapped in two. The size of it is circa 1cm smaller than a standard size and no one will touch it to repair at a sensible price.

The guitar is my pride and joy and I would be so disappointed if I had to sell it for spare parts.

Does anyone know where I could source a spare part of this type, obviously because of the size of it Im willing to look at a supplier anywhere?

Here's hoping.

James

It's not good news unfortunately. If you were looking for weapons grade plutonium I would be in a better position to help. Given that the prestige is as far as I'm concerned one of the best guitars ever built it might be worth biting the bullet and paying for the repair. Always wondered if there was anyone out there who could knock out a reasonable substitute tailpiece for under £100, I would buy.
Good luck in your quest.

Hey... believe it or not, I had a prestige 250 stolen from me years ago (which I don't even want to talk about, really). But the bridge, tailpiece and truss rod cover happened to be in my gig bag, as I had taken the strings off for travel. It IS the gold plated model, but you're welcome to it if you want to pay for shipping, and if they are the same size (I suspect they are).

e-mail me @ (email addy removed by admin) if you'd like

I need one for my Rainbow II. It was previously fitted with a Bigsby and the STP is gone. I would very much like to return it to its original form.

Hi Joe

I've dropped you a mail with my contact details on, please let me know the contribution you need me to make and I'd be delighted to take you up on the tail piece your a total life saver

many thanks
James

What a great forum this is.

Hi Joe.
It's generally not a good idea to post your email in a public forum. Spam harvesters can grab it and make your life miserable.

For future communications please use the Private Message (PM button under your avatar). K?

Hi All
I just bought James' prestige 150 with the broken stop tail on it - collected it the other day - message going out to joe to see if he still has the 250 stop tailpiece for sale - it would be great to get the 150 back on the road. Thanks
Jon

Just been having a noodle/jam with my Son (drummer) and went through a few of the guitars. Havent played the 150 in a while and it was gorgeous, best of luck with the tailpiece, it'll be worth it.

I just compared the 250 with the 150 tails and they are the same.

PS if you get a response Id like the TRC.

Thanks Grogg
Not heard anything yet from joe (250 tailpiece guy). Keeping my fingers crossed. Trying to decide what would be the least destructive alternative solution if i cant get my hands on the replacement part very quickly. The standard stop tails are too wide, turns out that the prestige unit is a lot slimmer than trad versions. Could always re-drill the post holes but that feels like a lot of un-reverseable work to do to the prestige should i manage to find an original stop tail one day. Least destructive solutions i have so far is either screwing on a slim gibson stop tail that is used for the double neck SGs (just three small screws for this) or fitting a small chrome trapeze tailpiece that would only leave three screw holes near the strap button on the end of the guitar (and thereby not messing around with the top of the guitar at all). I'm going to mock up both units and see which one looks least weird! I'll keep you all posted.
Cheers
J

Like I mentioned about this on another thread.

Take a Gibson type and drill/grind/file 4mm off either end to fit on the Westone posts. Might not look as good but will work with no mods to your guitar at all.

http://forum.westoneguitars.net/t3747p20-prestige-150-on-ebay

Sounds like a plan to get up and running. However-would be great to get it back to how it should be -

Hope youve still got the broken bits because I think they could be soldered back. The reason I say solder is that the metals used in these castings were pretty cheap materials, commonly called pot metal, these have a fairly low melting point.

Not sure that helps you short term but a specialist maybe could sort it.

Thanks for the tips - I'm going to go for the drilled down gibson stop tail in the short term and look into getting the original fixed/replaced. During my research i have come accross a few other prestige/rainbow/thunder models with broken stop tails, all the same design and age. I guess this metal in the shape it has been designed might be a bit weak now that they are 30 years old. Still look pretty though!

I have mentioned it before that it would be a great sunday afternoon project to take a piece of brass, a drill, some files and sandpaper etc. Could even be chromed if necessary.

FOR GODS SAKE DON'T DRILL

not for the guitar but the brass for the strings to go through!!!

DON'T DRILL THE GUITAR....MAKE THE BRASS TO FIT THE EXISTING POSTS!!!!