Pantera tremelo arm

Hiya,
Ms. Polly, first let me say you're doing a bang-up job of your re-build but are you sure the Japanese characters don't say something rude (I hope not).
A question to the expertise assembeled herein. I'm going to try to fabricate a tremelo arm for Lucy. Any spec's on the thread size that go into the fitting? How close to the body should the front edge of the bridge be or is this totaly dependant on what I desire the string height to be? NOTE: I WILL remove 2 of the 5 springs now in place before I proceed much further.
Thanks in advance.

Why Thank 'ee Mr. Confused!

I have it on good authority that they do mean what they say so I'll go with that! Anyway, I don't read Japanese so it doesn't really matter, it still looks nice and that's all that counts!

As for your trem arm, I know that our 'Mr. Corsair' made one not so long ago and I'm sure that he could oblige you with some technical details much more than I can.

If you were to ask me to measure the trem arm on my Pantera, I would have to tell you in inches because I'm afraid that I never quite got my head around the metric thing!

Good luck!

Pauline :flower: :queen:

Domo Arigato Ms. Polly,
I work in both metric and imperial units. I understand the threads will be in metric but overall dimensions will be understood in imperial.

G'day, Con - before we go further, is the bridge a Bendmaster Deluxe, or a Kahler, or a Bendmaster FT? These all have different arms and the only one I'm familiar with is the Deluxe!

Bingo Mr. Corsair...she says Bendmaster Deluxe...please continue...I would measure it myself but my metric thread guages are 1500 miles away-Thank you

Confused wrote:Domo Arigato Ms. Polly ...

Ooh, I know what that means! Thank you very much too, Mr. Confused!

Pauline :flower: :queen:

Right-o, bud - here we go; the OEM bar is chromed steel, but 6mm stainless was used for the homemade one - not by me, incidentally, but by the moderator of the Westone.info site...

Hiya,
Many thanks Mr. Corsair. Quite a complete description. I'll attempt to manufacture from your photo's. IF i am able to produce an acceptable (to me and my son says I'm terribley anal-no respect from the younger crowd eh?) arm, I can buff the stainless to a shine. Lucy continues to amaze me. My playing sucks but the melodious sounds eminating make it a truly enjoyable learning experience. Why didn't Westone ever become the benchmark for the professional players? Brand loyalty (Fender, Gibson)-too bad? Thanks again.

Confused wrote:Why didn't Westone ever become the benchmark for the professional players? Brand loyalty (Fender, Gibson)-too bad?

It was foreign. And they didn't have the millions to give to the stars that promoted their brands, unlike the brands you mentionned.

Confused wrote: Why didn't Westone ever become the benchmark for the professional players? Brand loyalty (Fender, Gibson)-too bad? Thanks again.

Possibly because of the conservatism of guitarists - you wouldn't believe the disparaging comments I STILL get from other musos either in the studio or as a pick-up band member when I front up with my Vantage..... until I actually play it!! Ibanez actually did become something of a benchmark, as did the Yamaha 2000 and why Matsumoku never gained the plaudits of those when they are at least the equal is one of the great questions of our time!

There's also a frame of mind when recording or performing that says you need a certain sound that can only be given by F****R or G*****n; poop, I know but it is certainly there and getting more entrenched every day, particularly in these days of cheap Indonesian and Chinese junk which just doesn't cut it soundwise...

Anyway, just enjoy the Pantera and feel morally superior to all the deluded grippers out there who think that a CBS-era Strat is the bees knees....

corsair wrote:Anyway, just enjoy the Pantera and feel morally superior to all the deluded grippers out there who think that a CBS-era Strat is the bees knees....

I thought those were supposedly the worst ones.

Anyways, it's always about getting X's tone. If guitarists actually focused on creating their own tone rather than aping the one their childhood hero had, the big brands might lose some sales!

I mean even I've done it, but not really. I saw Tom Petty and George Harrison playing Rickenbackers and though to myself, man, those are nice guitars! I now own two RICs!

Sfalj wrote: I saw Tom Petty and George Harrison playing Rickenbackers and though to myself, man, those are nice guitars!I now own two RICs!

...ah yes, but did you get the 360/12 that both of the above, plus Jim McGuire (Byrds) and Peter Buck (REM), made into such icons?! They sound different because they're strung differently to other 12s, ie with the octave string below the normal gauge string. Possibly one of the coolest guitar sounds ever, IMHO, but the guitar is a pig to play with it's tight string width and shorter then short scale length! Well, I found it awkward, anyway, possibly due to short stubby fingers!!

Actually, I didn't, but a twelve string RIC is at the top of my most wanted list. I wanted my first to be a more manageable one.

Did Westone ever manufacture any twelve string guitars? I don't think I've ever heard of one and it doesn't seem to me like that was the kind of guitar they were into making.

As always, I could be wrong.

G'day Antoine - I don't think they did out of the factory but Colt or David would be able to tell us for sure. One of our forum members, however, did make a triple neck Westone (6 string, bass and 12) which I have seen in pix - (VERY impressive indeed) - so maybe he could let us see it again?! Come on, Guy - you know you wanna....let the Welsh Dragon ride again!!

Oh, mate, that Rick 12 noise is simply other-worldly, I could sit on an open G chord all day but for the amount of 12 string stuff I play on stage I just use a pitch-shifter these days; I can't justify the price of a Rick down this way!!

Which user was it who made such a beast!? That sounds like quite an exceptionnal instrument. What guitars were used in the construction? I'm assuming when you say built a triple-neck Westone you mean he used the bodies from three Westones and put them together. Anyways, I would love to see it.

Yes, RIC had another price increase last December. The used market is becoming more and more appealing.

corsair wrote:Right-o, bud - here we go; the OEM bar is chromed
steel, but 6mm stainless was used for the homemade one - not by me,
incidentally, but by the moderator of the Westone.info site...

At the risk of resurrecting a long-dead thread or being a bit thick ...

Thanks for posting this info. I'm still just a bit confused, however:

I have a newly-acquired Pantera X300 in transit to me, with a Bendmaster Deluxe that is
missing its arm. Unfortunately the stock of replacements at the
Westone.info site is now out, and they don't expect to get any more in
stock.

Based on the pics you posted above, it looks like I may be able to use this 6mm threaded replacement unit:
http://store.guitarfetish.com/6mmflroinmer.html

However, I also found this thread on this forum, in which Steve777 said
that the BM Deluxe takes the Floyd-type bar with a collar:
http://forum.westoneguitars.net/wanted-f4/trem-bar-for-bendmaster-deluxe-t444.htm?highlight=bendmaster

- which suggests that this collared replacement unit would work:
http://store.guitarfetish.com/flrorearmbl.html

They're cheap, so it wouldn't kill me to order one of each, but if I could clear it up definitively and order just the one I need that'd obviously be preferable. Can anyone give a definitive answer -- threaded or collared?

Thanks!

Hiya Alex - hey, no worries about thread resurrection, and there's no such thing as a stupid question, so here goes....

The first of the ones you've linked would be the one I'd go for - the one without the collar; BD's have a collar on the bridge plate...





...as you can see, there is a wee grubb screw in there to lock the arm in the required place. I'm unsure what the machined groove in the bottom part of the collar is for; maybe some else out there knows! Colt?!





...showing the internal thread of the collar

Let's have a perve at the guitar when you've got it, won't you?!

Alex,
Best of luck with the Pantera. If it's the white one from ebay that ended last week, it was me you outbid :>(. I already own a x250 so no tears to be cried.
Good luck finding a trem, I'm holding on to 2 extras for Westones I might buy down the road.

There are a couple of guy on the net that make replacement trem arms for other guitars. If you asked them to make one with the proper metric threading, you might get a bite.

corsair wrote:The first of the ones you've linked would be the one
I'd go for - the one without the collar; BD's have a collar on the
bridge plate...
[...]
Let's have a perve at the guitar when you've got it, won't you?!

Thanks mucho for the tip -- I've got a 6mm arm on order now. As for the pics -- here ya go.



I've given it a good cleaning / string change already, and touched up a sub-[U.S.]dime-sized chip in the finish with pearl nail polish -- not a perfect color match, but it's in an out-of-the-way place, not really visible at stage distance, and hopefully the clear coat I put over it will yellow over the years to better blend with the rest of the aged finish.



Think I'm going to add a momentary pushbutton kill switch between the selector and the output jack, and there's a little buzzing on the 5th string -- I think the nut slot is a bit too deep and needs to be filled in a bit with the old super-glue/baking soda trick. But all in all it's a pretty nice guitar. Sounds good amplified, though those single-coils hum a lot worse than any other of my guitars. No shielding, it appears. I'm thinking about replacing them either with GFS Neovins, or maybe just replacing the neck with a Duncan Lil' 59 or other SC-size humbucker. Those holes by the bridge PU are apparently from a MIDI pickup it had on it at some point.

The jury is still out over whether that Pantera logo on the body is acceptable as-is, or too cheesy and in need of
covering-up with something (though I dislike stickers on guitars too, or on pretty much anything else that looks nice as-is).

madmarcus1960 wrote:Alex,
Best of luck with the Pantera.
If it's the white one from ebay that ended last week, it was me you
outbid :>(. I already own a x250 so no tears to be cried.

/>

Whoops ... yep, I think that might have been me. Sorry 'bout that, but glad no hard feelings. It's a good guitar, and the neck fits my hand better than my previous "80s" guitar, an Ibanez Roadstar II with a really thin neck, so up on the block I think that one's going ... after I swipe those boomerang strap buttons off it and put them onto the new Westone.

The Pantera logo is perfect as is. Real beauty you've got.

Alex, first off I'm glad you won the axe. I mistakenly posted that I owned a x250, it is in fact a cherry stain x275. I stripped out the electronics and pickups. I replaced the volume pot with a staked dual 500K pot and made it both volume and tone. I loaded the guitar up with Dimarzios (Fred Full HB in the bridge, a Cruiser dual blade HB neck in the middle, and a Chopper dual blade HB in the neck) I also drilled 2 holes between the 5 pos switch and the jack(cavity wise) and added DPDT parallel/series switches(check guitarelectronics.com for wiring) for the Cruiser and Chopper. I also added a Kahler trem stabilizer, checkout wammiworld.com. I put these in all my trem guitars since I don't generally use a trem to go sharp. It makes a big difference how they stay in tune even after dive bombing.

I'll try to post some pics.

Since I didn't win the Pantera, I got the next thing to come by a 1987 Corsair Deluxe. It comes in this wed.

Have fun with the Pantera and leave the decal alone. It is what it is. Be proud to own one!!