Westone Strat

1986 Westone stratocaster. Made in Japan, 21 frets, black solid top . Voume control, 5-way selector, 2 tone-controls. S-S-S passive pickups by Westone behind the bridge and neck ,. Alder body , maple neck/rosewood.
Transparent finished. .Vintage tuners, but made perfectly .Bridge Vintage statocaster style - extremal comfortable. Vintage frets by Jim Dunlop. mensure is very long - 650mm.No More features - who cares?

I love many styles and types of music, from jazz, rock, classical, blues, grunge, you name it. Sometimes (dare I say it a some country). But, I have always loved the music of Jimi Hendrix, and also Stevie Ray Vaughan, and with this strat, and the Marshall 1959SLP amp and effects like leslie, wah-wah, big muff, you are on your way in getting that Hendrix Psychodelic, SRV Texas and Alice In Chains blues/Rock sound I like crystal jazz tone. I changed the strings to a .11 gauge. The strings when I bought it used .9 gauges.sound is much better with a higher gauge and those guys from westone recommends those bullet end strings. The sound is rich and warm ... Im using a marshall amp and it sounds bright and chunky

. The finish of guitar is perfect - hardware is perfectly finished, the piece of wood are perfect - i was truly amazed when i bought it . It was well made and the craftmanship is sleek and perfect! The guitar is in the $400 range and its a midrange guitar yet its sound and craftmanship goes like those of the real thing Japan made I should say. The guitar came to me perfectly new and perfectly set-up'd!

I have changed the tuners to Locking Tuners Aut-Trim Planet Waves and roller custom nut .Pickup Scieranski custom hand made in the middle now for more jazzy styled sound. Especially for extremal tremolo using. For normal play there is nothing to change . NADA! I have the original hardware and it looks like new parts

never have problems - don'know

I have been playing for 10 years on this pretty one. I have also hand made 12-string Kania electric guitar & ibanez artist . But this one (Westone) is my favourite one.
Greeting from Poland

I got my Westone as a graduation gift in 1989, so I figure they were still putting them out then. It certainly seems like a Asian design guitar.

The most obvious feature is the unique paint design. It is a royal blue color with a white crackle design. It is very "80's". While it looks rather corny now, it was amazingly hot during the glam-rock hey days.

It has a chrome, fine-tuning tremolo with a locking nut. There are two black metal knobs (volume/control) and a 5-position switch.

While it is a Strat-design, there are some carved angles which give it a lot more character than a standard Strat. The body is solid (and very heavy) and the fretboard is rosewood. The head is built backwards so that the tuning keys are on the bottom, facing the floor when you're playing.

There are two single coil pick-ups and one humbucker; all are covered in a black plastic casings.

The neck is thin, making speed easier although making it harder to play if you have large fingers.

I run mine through an old Peavey Backstage Plus at home. The sound is definitely hard rock. I'm using a DOD effects board, but I've found that this guitar is at its glory when it is soaked in distortion. The humbucker has a richness and creaminess to it when it's used with good distortion. Of every guitar player I've ever had hear it, and play it, almost every one of them have been shocked by the quality of this unknown guitar.

However, as a solid rock guitar, its sound tens to be a little short when you play clean. For some reason the chords can get muffled a bit with the high notes playing distractingly loud. I've found that the single coil pickup at the neck is not worth playing at all due to its notoriously bad tone.

Nonetheless, for what this guitar does with the humbucker, you'll never care about that neck pickup. I rate this a 10, because it would be a shame to take anything away from that sweet rock sound.

The guitar was set up beautifully at purchase. The fretboard had been treated with some type of lubrication that made it very easy to fly. Years of play wore that off a long time ago, but with the slenderness of the neck, the action is still very fast. Much faster than any Gibson I've ever played, for sure.

The fit is classic, and the finish is very nice. After over ten years of abuse, she still looks new.

However, that narrow fretboard is just too tough to navigate sometimes. It is often very difficult to fret just one string, especially when in hot pursuit of a smoking solo.

10 years and counting. She still looks great.

However, I have had problems with the volume knob. But, after 10 years if that's all I have, big deal.

The folks don't exist anymore and I never had a reason to contact them.

For anyone interested though, I have noticed that there is a webist called www.musicyo.com and they carry Kramer guitars. I didn't know Kramer was around, but they do have a guitar there that looks just like the Westone, same hardwar, same design, same paint, etc. My guess is that Westone at some point became a part of Kramer. That's just for what it's worth.

I've already talked enough, but I'll say that this guitar is my pride and joy, and it beats anything I've ever played. Sometimes the best jewels do not cost a fortune.