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Westone Rebuild

Westone Thunder 1-T Rebuild pt 3…Analysis and Rebuild


I stripped the guitar down into its remaining component parts, as mentioned in the second part of this article.

Most of the damaged parts were then assesed and either thrown out (like the pick up rings) or attempts were made to salvage them.

The stripped down parts
The stripped down parts

The bridge was very grungy and rusty…the saddles were stuck tight, needing my cutting wheel to get two of them off and all the screws were chewed up and useless. The only answer was to replace the set.  I got some Graphtech “string saver ferra glides” which have a graphite insert to ease the possibility of string breakage, but were pretty costly at £19.95. I cleaned up the baseplate and tremelo block and re-assembled the whole thing.

The original bridge
The original bridge

 

The rebuilt bridge
The rebuilt bridge

The body was stripped of all parts and sanded with coarse sandpaper to remove the top coat of clear lacquer and give a good base for the wood filler I needed to use to fill the dents and gouges. I used some basic white plastic wood filler I found in my local hardware shop…The colour didn’t matter as it was being painted anyway. It was then a case of tediously filling, sanding, checking, re-filling, sanding, etc until all the big problem areas were smooth. Fingertips is the best tool for this job…your sense of touch is more reliable than sight when it comes to imperfections of this nature.

Here’s the body hanging on my washing line with the first “ghost” coat of primer, which gives a final indication of any rough areas before the remainder of the primer and top coat get applied.

The first coat of primer
The first coat of primer

Next post I’ll deal with painting the top coat and the hunt for spares…

Thanks for reading, please feel free to comment on my efforts…literary and practical!

2 replies on “Westone Thunder 1-T Rebuild pt 3…Analysis and Rebuild”

Loving the walk through of your rebuild as I own a Thunder 1-T and I am considering fixing it up, but mine is certainly in better shape than that one was when you found it.

Thanks Steve, the guitar is almost finished now, just a bit more wiring and a set up..hopefully the pick ups will work…they haven’t been tested yet…