New Westone owner, restoration project.

So I started my musical career as a bassist way back in 1997.  I was recruited to play bass for my church and the music director had mentioned that he had an old guitar that another kid had taken to refinish and that it was kinda thrashed with some of the hardware missing.  I asked if I could take a look at it and he told me, you can have it if you want.  Enter this Westone XA1440 Corsair(near as my Google-fu can discern).  



It is fairly beat, but I started playing guitar about 3 years ago and have been coming along pretty well(at least having fun) and wanted to put some work into this.  Just need some help with finding a replacement bridge and some explanation on the electronics.  I'm handy with a soldering iron and I have a great paint/body guy that's also a guitarist and wants to put a paint job on something.  Any info/insights/suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Howdy there!! We'd love to see your guitar but Your links - Photobucket, perchance?! - have been disabled. If you use the .servimg hosting service on here, we'll be able to see what you've got....

Hi Max and welcome.
Photobucket has destroyed a lot of information all over the Internet, including our Forum.

Have read HERE for alternate posting information. Also, click on the link in the scrolling message at the top of the screen as you log in.

Sorry about that guys.  Got the photos up now.  As you can see it's not much but it's a start.  I guess the big thing is that I'm looking for a Trem to replace the one that went AWOL and was looking at a unit from over at guitarfetish.com.  I would insert the link but new members are not allowed for 7 days I gather.  Wonder what the experts have to say about it.

Hi Max and welcome to the forums.
Seems you got a XA1440MP on your hands. Solid foundation but a lot of work ahead.
The trem might be a challenge as pretty much anything aftermarket may require a trem cavity modification.
A Bendmaster Deluxe is what's called for in this baby.
Locking nut, sorta in the same boat plus the neck p/up.
Best way is start with a clean slate... lots of sanding and elbow grease.
Full restore is not impossible. Some of the guys here are an absolute wealth of knowledge and they might have a few possibilities for you. Hang tight.
Cheers

DimensionIV-addict wrote:Hi Max and welcome to the forums.
Seems you got a XA1440MP on your hands. Solid foundation but a lot of work ahead.
The trem might be a challenge as pretty much anything aftermarket may require a trem cavity modification.
A Bendmaster Deluxe is what's called for in this baby.
Locking nut, sorta in the same boat plus the neck p/up.
Best way is start with a clean slate... lots of sanding and elbow grease.
Full restore is not impossible. Some of the guys here are an absolute wealth of knowledge and they might have a few possibilities for you. Hang tight.
Cheers

Thanks for the input.  I've been looking at the trem issue and I realize it's going to be a tad difficult but not impossible.  Lots of sanding is definitely on the agenda and all new guts were in the works as well.  Wondering if you could provide some insight on the switches.  Haven't really found anything that explains the layout properly.  They're 3/2/3 position respectively.

I may stand to be corrected as I haven't come across one myself but I think the switches are:

Neck p/up:   pos 1 single coil, pos 2 humbucker , pos 3 off (*or phase reverse)
Mid p/up:     pos 1 on,  pos 2 off
Bridge p/up: pos 1 single coil, pos 2 humbucker, pos 3 off (*or phase reverse)

unless there's a circuit board in there.

*edited

Check out this LINK

Easy peasy... looks like the sort of thing I'd love to hook into; you're gonna have some fun with that! First thing I'd do is bin the mini-switches and put in something sensible!!

I have a Bendmaster Deluxe bridge I could put your way though these may well have had the TRS 101; I can't remember. PM me and let me know if you want the bridge and we'll sort something out... can't help with the stringlock but you look to have one that just needs the locking washers and plates.

My Clipper  -and Spectrum Series 2 - have the stupid switching setup but they're H/S/S and H/S, respectively, and yes.. the humbucker is indeed on/on/on and from memory it is single coil/both coils/off; the singles are just on/off.
If the pickups are 4 wire p'ups, you could perhaps do a north coil/south coil/both coils, or a series/parallel/single coil wiring setup? If the switches are u/s, I have spare switches here that I bought from a NZ shop many years ago that was going out of business...

Be aware, however, that the postage from Australia to Texas ain't gonna be pennies!!

I'll let you know, Corsair. I just bought a house and the water heater quit on me less than a month in. So money is a little tight, but I appreciate it and the tech info as well. I think I'll be going back in with aftermarket pickups and a new Floyd unit if I get my way. The layout that DimensionIV-addict specified sounds pretty awesome, I may go that route. Give me the ability to get all sorts of neat sounds from this beast.

No worries! Be aware that a FR conversion may be a challenge; it has been tried once or twice with varying success rates - I think scale length is a problem but there is a Gotoh FR type bridge that drops straight in to a BD hole. A proper FR requires some woodwork!

That's a PITA about your hot water, mate!

Well......where to begin.   I finally made some progress on this thing in the last few months.  Stripped the finish off and repaired some gaps in the binding.  Friend of mine does autobody and paint as well as picks on guitars a bit.  I've done some work for him on the wiring front and he did this for my Corsair.  It's not completely finished on the paint.  He's going to add some black stripe to separate the blue/silver.  I've picked up a "toploader" trem from Guitar fetish and pickups/harness from there as well.  Going with a triple humbucker setup with 3-way toggle switches (Hum/Single/Off).  The hiccup I've encountered at the moment in the string retainers at the locking nut.  They're long gone and the new unit that came with the guitar fetish bridge isn't a fit.  Does anyone make these anymore?  Anyone have a spare set?  Anything that will bolt up in it's place?   Thanks guys, getting excited to get this thing back in action.

Hi Max, welcome back!
Looks like you're on your way to a beautiful resto. Nice.

The string lock was proprietary and there's nothing I know of off the shelf that will fit. But as Corsair mentioned (in post #9) you appear to be missing only the top plates and screws. If you're handy enough perhaps you could make your own plates?? (The screw thread is likely metric)

Barry wrote:Hi Max, welcome back!
Looks like you're on your way to a beautiful resto. Nice.

The string lock was proprietary and there's nothing I know of off the shelf that will fit. But as Corsair mentioned (in post #9) you appear to be missing only the top plates and screws. If you're handy enough perhaps you could make your own plates?? (The screw thread is likely metric)

Thanks Barry!  I talked to another user here about some spare string locks (Sgt. Vimes).  Got what I need on the way.  I test fit the "fastloader" trem from Guitar Fetish yesterday.  Fits like a champ.  I've picked up some Vintage Extra Hot humbuckers and a "Lil Killer" strat sized humbucker from GF with one of their Super Strat harnesses.  All ready to go with Single/Hum/Off switching, ought to give me a full range of tones.  Also planning on a full copper tape shielding of the cavities (I do this on all my basses and plan to start on the guitar fleet bit by bit).   Can't wait to get it all together and start playing with it.

Ah yes, our Sgt Vimes to the rescue!

I would have recommended contacting him but I was not sure that the string lock on the MIK guitars was the same as the Mats version.

If it is, great!

That first photo shows that you don't have a Bendmaster stringlock so I'm not sure that Sgt Vimes lockplates will help.
I've never seen a TRS101 bridge and lock but I suspect that's what you may have there; bear in mind that there a quite a few behind-the-nut stringlocks out there and replacing one is not a huge job should you need to!

I do like what you've done and look forward to seeing it up and running!

corsair wrote:That first photo shows that you don't have a Bendmaster stringlock so I'm not sure that Sgt Vimes lockplates will help.
I've never seen a TRS101 bridge and lock but I suspect that's what you may have there; bear in mind that there a quite a few behind-the-nut stringlocks out there and replacing one is not a huge job should you need to!

I do like what you've done and look forward to seeing it up and running!

Guitar has stringlock nut ahead of the actual nut with triangular shaped locks on the high E/B and Low E/A strings and square lock on the D/G.  If nothing else I'll use what he lists as triangle shaped locks and modify them to fit.  It's a XA1440 so it would've had a bendmaster from what I can tell.

That's good! Oh, I agree that it should have had a Bendmaster Deluxe on it...and that certainly sounds as though it is as I've not seen too many other with the triangular lockplates!
The thing to be aware of if it is a Bendmaster Deluxe stringlock, is that they will strip the threads if you look at them hard - be careful nipping up the bolts...

corsair wrote:That's good! Oh, I agree that it should have had a Bendmaster Deluxe on it...and that certainly sounds as though it is as I've not seen too many other with the triangular lockplates!
The thing to be aware of if it is a Bendmaster Deluxe stringlock, is that they will strip the threads if you look at them hard - be careful nipping up the bolts...

I definitely understand this.  There are threads in the outside lock positions, but they look pretty suspect.  I'm going to attempt to chase them with a tap, but if not that, I may have to put some helicoils in or get creative.