A rare japanese sparkly creature found it's way to my workbench this week.

[StoRMiE]

36 years of fretwear and gigging from it's owner, a 1983 Westone Raider I.







The fretboard was so dry it was starting to crack open, it had wire wool marks up and down the neck where it was never masked off, and the frets were worn down to sharp angular saw-tooth like blades.
It sits at a weird in between scale length of 24.75, which was strangely comfortable and sounds pretty nice. I have no earthly idea what the Dimarzio in it is, assuming it's just a weird covered super distortion.

I told the owner I wanted to fix it up for him so he could gig with it again and to pay for strings and I'd get to work, it took less than 3 hours to level/crown/polish the frets, clean the guitar, and set it up right. Well worth it to see the look on his face when it doesn't play like crap, but I honestly think that he'll tell me it doesn't play right without green rusty destroyed frets.

 

[metalchurch79]

Re: A rare japanese sparkly creature found it's way to my workbench this week.

My buddy has a lefty one of those in the same color and everything! I want it so I can add a reverse Jackson neck and a Floyd but he wont get off of it. haha! Prob best he keeps it because they are very hard to find.

 

[StoRMiE]

Re: A rare japanese sparkly creature found it's way to my workbench this week.

My buddy has a lefty one of those in the same color and everything! I want it so I can add a reverse Jackson neck and a Floyd but he wont get off of it. haha! Prob best he keeps it because they are very hard to find.

lol borrow it from him and trace the body, these things have so many straight lines it would be really easy to route a copied body for interesting projects. It'd be missing the sparkle, but it's definitely bass boat paint and I'm sure somewhere would do it.

 

[metalchurch79]

Re: A rare japanese sparkly creature found it's way to my workbench this week.

Haha yea I actually asked him for a tracing of it atleast. He made no mention of the scale length and I saw you posted that is was 24.75 so I'd likely have to do some fenangling (sp) if I were to mod it.

I was thinking black with a blood drip or something like Chris Holmes from WASP would play cause he always had really cool Star shaped guitars and even though Im not a fan of him or that band I always liked his guitars.

 

[RorySquier]

Re: A rare japanese sparkly creature found it's way to my workbench this week.

That guitar looks sick with just one pick up and one control knob. I really dig it! You've done a good job with the fret board and frets. Do you have any more close-up pictures of the fret board?



;>)/

 

[StoRMiE]

Re: A rare japanese sparkly creature found it's way to my workbench this week.

That guitar looks sick with just one pick up and one control knob. I really dig it! You've done a good job with the fret board and frets. Do you have any more close-up pictures of the fret board?



;>)/

 

[BriGuy1968]

Re: A rare japanese sparkly creature found it's way to my workbench this week.

Love it! Westones are killer guitars!

 

[RorySquier]

Re: A rare japanese sparkly creature found it's way to my workbench this week.

Love it! Westones are killer guitars!

I had a feeling you would show up on this thread.



;>)/

 

[Francois]

Re: A rare japanese sparkly creature found it's way to my workbench this week.

Westone necks are great. This one has lived and deserves a refret.

What wood the body is made of ? It is not specified here :
http://www.westoneguitars.net/guitars/raider-i-ii/

Last two weeks the guitar I played the most was a Westone (Concord III : basically of wide neck strat) the second most played being a 1968 SG...

 

[StoRMiE]

Re: A rare japanese sparkly creature found it's way to my workbench this week.

What wood the body is made of ?

I think the bodies are alder, looks like it through the chips and in the neck pocket.





The owner tried it out last night and was really happy, I told him it was a freebie but he insisted on paying me anyway.

But he sent it back with me. Not because there was anything wrong with it, but because he wanted the jack replaced and wanted a coil split wired to a push pull. He intends to play it at a show on friday, his band immediately took a liking to it during practice as they had never seen or heard it before. I just wanted to see him play it again.

 

[Diego]

Re: A rare japanese sparkly creature found it's way to my workbench this week.

That thing kicks ass. Funny to see such a radical body shape with just 21 frets, though.

 

[devastone]

Re: A rare japanese sparkly creature found it's way to my workbench this week.

It sits at a weird in between scale length of 24.75, which was strangely comfortable and sounds pretty nice.

What's so weird about that scale? Every LP and ~99% of LP style guitars have that scale.

But seriously, don't run with that guitar, it's very pointy!

 

[StoRMiE]

Re: A rare japanese sparkly creature found it's way to my workbench this week.

What's so weird about that scale? Every LP and ~99% of LP style guitars have that scale.

But seriously, don't run with that guitar, it's very pointy!

It just feels very weird and different being on a bolt on with a strat neck and bridge, it's in between trying to be a strat, and trying to be an LP while being it's own strange thing.

 

[devastone]

Re: A rare japanese sparkly creature found it's way to my workbench this week.

That makes sense. FWIW Jake E Lee's Charvels are Gibson scale.

 

[Francois]

Re: A rare japanese sparkly creature found it's way to my workbench this week.

Many guitars have scale in-between Gibson and Fender : PRS and Aria Pro II for example.
and also some accoustics like Martin.

So if you are used to both Strat and LP such guitar scales are convenient to play.

 

[devastone]

Re: A rare japanese sparkly creature found it's way to my workbench this week.

Many guitars have scale in-between Gibson and Fender : PRS and Aria Pro II for example.
and also some accoustics like Martin.

So if you are used to both Strat and LP such guitar scales are convenient to play.

24.75" is not in-between, it is the standard Gibson scale.