Brain Fertilizer

Philosophy:
What makes a guitar that guitar? What makes an object that object? If you repair a boat by replacing timbers, when does it stop being the original boat and start being a new boat?
In the same line, what makes a Westone guitar a Westone? What makes a quality guitar body? The shape? The paint job?

I have no idea how to answer the first paragraph, but for the second, it seems like what makes a Westone a Westone is the neck and the proprietary tremolo system. Some people have, like me, been less than impressed with the original Matsumoku pickups, and this guitar was originally made in Korea by Samick for the Westone name (after Matsumoku shut down guitar production), so different pickups shouldn't make it a lesser guitar, and may make it better.

I also think a good guitar body is pretty much the quality of wood. A great paint job and attention to detail may make a guitar prettier (and thus worth more money), but I don't think there is much difference in bodies, other than wood used...meaning that an alder body by Samick will sound as good as a Carvin alder body, which will sound as good as a Matsumoku alder body, which will sound as good as a genuine Stratocaster alder body, etc.

With all that, I am now pleased to announce that I finally got all my parts from eBay and have assembled them in the 1989 Westone Spectrum 1A body that I paid too much for a few months ago.

Of my 3 Westone purchases (only one of which is fully Westone), this one has the best neck. I will wire it up tonight, and should be checking out the tone tonight. Hopefully, the Mighty Mite MotherBuckers will give it a killer tone.

I originally purchased push/pull pots to try and increase the sonic possibilities, but then I did something stupid, I guess (although I couldn't have known how stupid it was at the time). It had the original knobs with it, black. I assembled the pots while I was waiting for the pickup rings and screws to arrive. I put the knobs on the pot stems. I decided I wanted chrome knobs. I tried to remove the black knobs and ended up pullling the stems out of the pots. I cannot remove the knobs, even with pliers and wrenches.

Oh, well...with a toggle switch and two push/pull knobs, wiring was going to be way too complicated... Moreover, if the push/pull knobs handle the coil splitting, and the toggle switch handles the middle pickup on/off, then what is the middle position of the 5-way switch for? I couldn't figure it out.

So screw it. I purchased a bunch of normal pots, and they arrived a few days ago, along with the chrome knobs. I'll wire it up simply, with the toggle switch merely splitting the coil, rather than the normal Westone method of the toggle switch turning on the middle pickup and the push/pull knob splitting the double coils. That means I can only split one of the double coils, but that's okay. I'm thinking: I rarely, if ever, split the bridge pickup, but with my interest in jazz and blues, I like the difference in sound of a single coil neck pickup vs the double coil, so I may just split that pickup instead of the traditional one.

Also, the tremolo system is apparently a Yamaha licensed copy of a Floyd Rose system. I'm not sure how well it fits the guitar, and I might end up replacing it with one of the spare Westone Bendmaster systems I have on hand (one of the two being on the Frankenstein guitar I plan on dismantling and selling for parts). The only thing is that the Yamaha tremolo has a pretty cool clamping feature that locks down the strings at the bridge; a true double-locking system that should theoretically be more stable than the Westone Bendmaster. It also does a great job of allowing string bends without changing the pitch of the non-bent strings. But I'm having difficulty finding the right tremolo arm for

I hope I'm happy with the guitar. I'll let you know when I know.

I'll post pictures when it's done, tomorrow or the day after.