Thunder 1A (earliest circuit type) rebuild

[MandrakeMan]

Hi,

I played with a guy from about 1994 to 1996 in a band that played around southern England & France and at the last gig before we, 4 of us, moved to London, he jumped on his guitar as the big finale, i don't recall if that broke the neck or he jumped on it because the neck broke, but anyway, it broke, a bunch of the switches broke off and that was that.
It did move with us, I packed up the pieces when he said he didn't want it and it sat in bits for a year or maybe less, until I had a bit of time and took the neck to a DIY shop and asked if there was a glue out there stronger than wood. The answer being 'yes', I don't recall what glue, I bought the glue and a mini vice to clamp the neck together. It then DID sit for a year in the vice as I was either busy or uninterested in fixing her up, but eventually I dug it out and thought I'd put it together and to my surprise the neck has lasted for 10 years, most of which during that time, the guitar has hung by it's head stock.
When i put it back together, it was a right mess, stickers, black paint, deep black hand painted paint, khaki paint and lord knows what else caked on it, the way that some teenage guitarists feel the need to do. Lacking finances and the contacts to even get the required bits, I removed what I could, sprayed the body white - hey, there was a can in the house, and then painted on a George Cross, as it was going to France as a back up guitar. The active didn't work, it was VERY hard to switch pick-ups, and the only surviving knob - thankfully - was the volume, but the guitar sounded great, always did. The red paint came straight off once i sweat all over it during one of the evenings when my Telecasters string broke mid song, so I cleaned that off and it's just had 10 largely sad years just sat being an occasional back-up guitar. I kept it, because I always intended to make her look nice again, which brings me to now...

With some extremely helpful tips from Polyanna here on the forum - who has an excellent book in the pipeline on guitar restoration and David who supplied the new knobs and switches and the guys at WD Music who sell screws, switches, pick-up mounts etc, I drew up a list and got to work, here's what went on:

The before shots, which hopefully show the extent of the damage to the body, I forgot to add that the input hole had been smashed:











In the next picture you can see the damage to the neck, which thankfully split along the inside of the neck and so didn't break the fret board. Although I know most would be tempted to clean this up, at least for the time being I'd rather leave this to show the life the guitar has had, the makeover mainly centres on the body and the electrics. That being said, it does still need a refret and will go to Graham's place in the basement of Andy's Music, Denmark Street over the next couple of months to be finished off in that regard. I know i could do that myself, but I've spent far longer on the sanding and finishing of the body, the electrics etc, than I could already really spare:











The following picture also shows how the neck split under the fret board, rather than breaking cleanly across, and once glued and clamped back together, bar what you can see, it's had no effect on the actual neck and playing:



The original electrics follow. I've replaced all the switches and the 1st knob, the one that you can see was totally smashed off. What a daunting task that was when I came to it, but with some notes I made as I removed wires and the circuit diagram David has on his website, it wasn't so difficult, well, it was but it was doable and everything seems to work. I need to sort out a slight puzzle about one setting and the centre knob, but more on that later.
It turns out that the centre knob has been slightly bent and seems a bit weak, half the inside part that the knob fixes on to broke off, so that to may need changing but for now it seems ok:









Here are the only other two pictures I have for now, from when I started to take it apart. That's not strictly true, I just found a couple of ones from last week when I was putting back together, but let's do this chronologically :-)



I knew there was the chance that it was the nice wood finish model...


I'll post more of the work in progress and completed shots as and when time permits.

Cheers and best

Chris

[Pollyanna]

WOW Chris!

You never told me all this when you've been writing to me, you dark horse! That neck break looks as if it has healed really well!

Anyway mate, as you know, I'm dying to see what comes next!

Have you got the little problem with the earth wire sorted out yet or are you going to wait till Graham takes a look at it?

Keep up the good work, I can't wait for the next installment!

Pauline

P.s. I'm glad that you liked the book!

[Steve777]

Hi Chris,

Your Thunder does seem to have been through the wars .... but still saveable !! Great idea to take it down to bare wood. There's Japanese ash under that "thar" white paint with lovely grain patterns. I've used Danish oil on a Westone neck recently and it came up like the "dogs spherical's" ! To get a guitar shop to respray in the original polyester finish (very durable) would cost in the region £150-£250 !!

There is another finishing product by Rustins that Brian May used on his Red Special. That is also very hard and durable. Alternatively, there always Nitro Celly lacquer .... but takes time for the solvents to evaporate and fully cure.

Let us know your progress.

[corsair]

It's nice to see a Westone being used in anger, so to speak! The Thunders seem very well regarded and I'll assume yours has the OEM pups - MMK45's? - which are real Gibson killers but as a backup to a Tele it'd sound a bit different, eh!

Yeah, it's been said once or twice in here before but without David and Polly life would have been a whole lot harder for those of us with Westone "issues" and as for the re-fret, well, I think you're probably right to get it done; I'll do just about anything to a guitar or amp myself but re-fretting or even re-crowning and levelling seems to be as much an art-form as a science so I'm quite happy to get a luthier to do it!

We've had this discussion in here before, but I'd being using a paintstripper on that white to do the donkey work, and then sanding to finish off - I am an advocate of doing things the easy way!; when you blew on the white did you give the original finish a sand? Because if you didn't, then it should come off quite easily with a proprietry stripper; just follow the instructions to the letter!

Steve's probably right about the polyester thing being costly, but there are modern equivalents of the poly finish which perhaps an auto painter could do for a fraction of that?

Regardless, welcome in here and keep us posted - we are real voyeurs and love to look at other's gear...

[MandrakeMan]

Hi,

Thanks for the comments and tips on cleaning up the neck.

Here follow some pics of the body being sanded back, and yes, I think when it was sprayed white very quickly 10 years ago, I did quickly hand sand the stickers and everything flat, but it was a really fast clean-up and I don't recall getting down to the wood, though that might've been the case, and may be the reason it was kept, as like I said I always thought about sanding her back. 10-12 years, alot has happened and we were early 20s then, it's a bit blurry ;-)

This picture shows the damage to the body behind the input. I can only think I must have added the washer that you could see in the previous pics, as a quick solution to the problem. I knew it had to come off but really didn't know what I was going to do about making it an exceptable finish at this point - one thing at a time:



I did sort this problem out, it's not 100% perfect but I had a builder around the house the otherday and he saw the body and I pointed out to him how I'd filled the hole - it still hadn't been drilled for the input then - and he said he would've never guessed it was a fill job. Pictures of that to follow.

Here are the only two pictures I think I can find of mid strip down. Two things here, first is you can see the layers of paint that were caked on - getting off the sides and horns was a REAL pain and took alot of elbow grease! The other thing is that you can see that lacking total confidence in a full removal of electrics, I decided to seal them in with gaffa & masking tape. The pick-ups are the 45's, they are sweet sounding pick-ups, so I was surprised somewhere, i think it was here, when people say they've replaced them?? Anyway, they were removed for the white spray years ago, but being happy with the way it sounded, I was reluctant to take them off this time until I found this site and saw some of the guitars here, to make sure I was putting them back in the correct positions, obviously not knowing how careful I'd been last time around, as then it was probably a "chop them off, spray body, solder them until they work" kind of approach, not what I wanted to do now.

Sanding was actually quite fun, bloody noisy(!), but I took Pauline's advice, got a sanding disc - which clogged nearly instantly, put my drill on a pretty slow speed, so it didn't get carried away, and off the crap came, layer after layer of it, the kitchen and next room were thick with black dust! Alot of hoovering later, I arrived at the following state





One note here on the sanding discs. They aren't totally necessary. I mean, the main plastic backing disc obviously is, but if you then just use normal sand paper and fashion in a minute or two a disc with that and some masking tape, you can save all the money of buying 5 or more pro-discs which cost around £2-3 each, when a strip of good paper costs only £1 and gives the same results.

The close ups here show the only parts of the body where you could see the original varnish colour, in the horns. There is also the problem of the black paint which seems to have bled into the wood quite deeply, somehow getting into the grain from the side of the cut holes, so no matter how you sand them, they still show traces of black, very frustrating!





Here you can see the wood colour resin filler I used to fill the broken input hole and unfortunately the wood where the black is was so thin, I didn't want to cut it back further, figuring that it'd look like grain knobles/discolouration etc to the untrained eye once it was finished anyway:



There's only really the finished shots to add now, with some notes on the fun of a million coats of Colron's Antique Oil!
Oh, and the rewiring, I guess I can take a picture of that and the old cut out switches etc, if people are interested?

I went to mainly hand sanding and buffing with a buffing disc in the drill after these shots, mainly as the sanding discs by their very action cut across the grain, as can be seen in places in the close ups. She was starting to look the part though :-)

Cheers

Chris

p.s. if you were wondering about the pick-up selector switch, I had to actually hacksaw that out from the top as the thread was bent and painted.

[Steve777]

Hi Chris

glad to see that your hard work is paying off. Nice grain showing now. However, if you have simply filled the jack hole, I really doubt whether this will hold the jack socket. The filler will simply start to break away when the jack socket starts to take the strain of the lead ... snagging etc.

Personally, and its only a personal thing from experience, I would of screwed a thin backing plate to back of the hole inside the control cavity to add some strength.

However, as something more permanent, I would of probably taken out all of the damaged by drilling out a larger hole perfect circle. I would then cut a perfect circle of ash to match the new hole making sure that the new wood and the hole were a tight fit. I would of then of glued it in place and let it set. Obviously, the new wood needs to be a similar colour.

Alternatively, you could always fix hole to be OK, not worry about the cosmetics, and then cover the top of the guitar in veneer. Always fancied Macasser ebony myself.

As for the paint stuck on the horns and curves ( the difficult bits ) , do you have a spokeshave you can use?

Keep well

[corsair]

Oooh; a spokeshave's a bit drastic!! One of those squishy foam sanding blocks that form to the shape you're sanding and some 40 grit will get in there fine! I think Steve's suggestion re. the input jack is probably the way to go for strength and aesthetics; I've done it before and with a little patience it works out very well indeed.

Good work so far, man - don't be afraid, whip the guts out simply because it a) makes life easier and b) allows you to check the electronics on the bench!!

Our Polly's even torn guitars down before seeing if they actually work... haven't you lass!!!

[Steve777]

Ahhh ... a spokeshave in the hands of someone who knows whats what is a great tool. There are lots of sizes to make things easy, but I do take the point about the sanding block. It also helps when ones father trained as a pattern maker at Jaguar when cars were cars with lots of wood ! Actually John, when I had a custom guitar made for me in the 8o's, the luthier came around to my folks house and my Dad showed him cases and cases of handmade precision chesils of all shapes, and specialist shaping and cutting tools that Dad had made himself as part of his apprentiship. They are an artform in their own right. Quite rightly, he consider them tools of trade. Even the wooden case are bespoke.

The Luthier made an offer for the lot on the spot but was turned down. He still asks me if my Dad wants to sell them now.

[corsair]

Ahhh ... a spokeshave in the hands of someone who knows whats what is a great tool. There are lots of sizes to make things easy, but I do take the point about the sanding block. It also helps when ones father trained as a pattern maker at Jaguar when cars were cars with lots of wood ! Actually John, when I had a custom guitar made for me in the 8o's, the luthier came around to my folks house and my Dad showed him cases and cases of handmade precision chisels of all shapes, and specialist shaping and cutting tools that Dad had made himself as part of his apprenticeship. They are an artform in their own right. Quite rightly, he consider them tools of trade. Even the wooden case are bespoke.

The Luthier made an offer for the lot on the spot but was turned down. He still asks me if my Dad wants to sell them now.

My brother-in-laws father was also a joiner and had the same sort of deal sitting in a big, feck-off crate in his garage stocked with all sorts of weird and wonderful tools; the ones I really liked were the coving and rebating planes - cool tools!!

So, where's the custom job now, Steve - you still have it?

[Steve777]

The custom job still exists and carefully stored at present. Enjoying my Westones too much at present. Which reminds me, I should really posts some pictures of it .... which of course I will .... when I get round to it.

Have great holiday

[Pollyanna]

Hi Chris,

I've found that the best way to clean inside the horns is to use a piece of rolled up coarse grit sandpaper to break through the surface layers of paint, gradually working down to fine grit and then using the afore mentioned sponge block. OR: you could always use a sanding drum... a bit tricky though because it has a tendency to run away from you and you could end up reshaping the horns! (There speaks the voice of experience! )

Of course, John is dead right, I have been known to rip a guitar (or two) to bits before testing to see if it worked! How else do you think I got called "Polly the Pulverizer"?

Steve's right about the filler also, nasty horrible stuff, I hate it! As a temporary measure, if you don't want to go to the bother of cutting a larger hole and plugging it with wood again, you can always use a large washer, glued in with 'Tite Bond' or superglue(?) (not sure if that would react with the filler though), over the input socket on the inside of the cavity, to strengthen behind the filler. (You might have to file down the washer a bit on one side so that it will fit in the curve in the cavity).

Anyway mate, I'm enjoying seeing all these photos and snippets of the work in progress, looking forward to the next installments.

Keep up the good work!

Pauline

[MandrakeMan]

So... I didn't get a chance to posting finished pictures. If I have time I'll take some better ones and upload them. I'm very pleased with the look overall, especially for my first proper rebuild i.e. strip down to wood, rewiring, changing pots etc. There are a couple of issues which i need to possibly sort out, the one mentioned before, i still have a slight switch issue, plus it needs a bit of refretting high-up on the neck, so I'll put it into Graham on Denmark Street later in the year - just too much on financially and work-wise at present - and get him to do a refret and set-up, and take a look at the wiring then. It plays and sounds as great as ever. I am actually surprised these guitars aren't more sort after than they are. For build quality they are great, but it's the sound of those twin humbuckers and the tone of the guitar, it's sweet. I've used it on my new album, which will be out MileHighMusic in the next couple of months - there are clips on their site now if you are interested to look.

Best

Christy




the neck is a different tone, but i love it's aged colour and the fixed break marks - which is the reason i own her, so don't intend to colour/change the neck.



here you can see the filling to the damage around the input. i'm ok with it, it's actually closer than the colours in this picture make it look. I know people said about cutting it out and getting a wood plug but i'd end up with a bigger hole and grain that would never match anyway.



yes, shiny gloss. a friend who plays bass, last night saw it for the 1st time since it's days as a monster white sprayed beast and said he loved it BUT he would've gone for a matt finish. It was Colron's Antique Oil that I used and I was after a very natural way of showing of the wood, rather than varnish, and that being said, i love a good shiny finish anyway, so it looks lovely to me in natural light.

[bobroberts]

Looks fantastic!

well done, that man!

[corsair]

Stonking good job, there - I like the shiny finish, too!! Didn't Westone, and Matsumoku in general, use lovely wood?

[Pollyanna]

WOW!!!!

Cracking job there Chris, well done mate!

That 'Antique Oil' is the business, I just love it!

Oooh, and that's another restoration job that I feel has a little bit of me in it! It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy!

Polly

[MandrakeMan]

Polly, you definitely DID have a big part in helping me to complete this, so thanks again for all the advice and good luck with getting the book on restoration out, i'm sure it'll help alot of people, i wish i had it before i started!

Best

[Bunyip]

Great job, Christy. The finish looks very similar to my lefty Thunder 1 which I finished with Danish Oil. I would use Danish Oil again if ever I get around to building my own Tele.

Being a lefty I get precious little opportunity to try other guitars to compare, but my two Thunder 1s sound pretty good to me. I often wonder how Westone humbucker guitars compare with Les Pauls. I am thinking of buying a Les Paul, most likely an MIJ Tokai, but I would be interested in people's comments if anyone has had the opportunity to compare a Thunder with a Gibson.

[Pollyanna]

OH My!

You've got me all blushing again now Chris!

Thank you for your praise of my book, I need feedback like this to encourage me to get on with it and do some more work to it!

Bunyip,

I can't recall whether or not you have already shown us the photos of your Thunder, but if you haven't, please put some up for us to see. As you know by now, they are a right pervy lot in here and like to see each others' stuff!

Have you tried using 'Colron's Antique Oil'? It's quicker to use than Danish Oil and gives a fantastic finish. (It's not smelly either!)

See pic below:





Polly

[Barry]

Can't say that I've seen this product in my part of the world, but I have used Minwax Antique Oil which does a nice job on most wood, and Trewax (Carnuba and beeswax) which I have on a couple of antique pine pieces (very hard).
I don't know if either of these would be a suitable replacement for the Colron product though. I've never used either on a guitar but I imagine the Trewax would be good for the neck; Minwax for the body maybe??? Dunno.
How does Colron finish up...hard and glossy or soft and flexible?

[Pollyanna]

Hello Barry,

The 'Antique Oil' is a blend of Tung oils and resins and it hardens to a tough finish, really durable! It's easy to apply and you buff each coat up after an hour before applying the next coat. It stays tacky for a few days afterwards until it hardens off completely but after that it's excellent! By the sounds of things, your 'Minwax' stuff is very similar.

Polly