Looking the guitar up, Vester was a company having electric guitars made in both China and Japan in the late 1980's. They were known for making guitars with crazy graphics on them, like a girls ass in a bikini, or this - this NES Cartridge Art Fodder Boxing Glove graphic. At one point I thought about doing a Punch-Out/NES themed guitar with it but decided not to, especially since it was already pretty beat up when I put it together. The graphics were actually PAPER sealed underneath the paint - a STICKER basically, and this one was peeling and bubbling after owning it for almost 15 years.

The guitar was rebuilt for a short while with B.C. Rich bronze series pickups, ProTone parts from Guitar Center, and used for a few videos and one Legion of Rock Stars type recording back in the 2000's. It was during that time I discovered this guitar had not one - but TWO Fatal flaws.....a STUCK Truss Rod, apparently it was broken from the factory, because I could not even get the bloody Truss Rod to tighten, and the neck screws were wallered out. I'm guessing this is what relegated it to "parts".

Anyway, playing it in these videos, I could always get it CLOSE to good to play, but never perfect because of that bloody stuck Truss Rod and the wimpy neck screw holes allowing a lot of shift. The fretwork was always very straight when the neck was not under tension, but once under tension, the truss rod nut would NOT turn with some force, and once I DID loosen it up, it was making ZERO difference. So I tried pulling the rod out - rod was nice and stiff. Then I carefully - but FIRMLY - bent the neck a few years later on a whim and I heard a small metallic "Snap" - I turned the Truss Rod nut, and the Truss Rod spun to life - pulling the neck into a backbow like it should. So now I had a good neck (once I fill and drill those neck bolts).

The only actual "Chassis" issues left - are the neck screws (I think I may have fixed that already), and a small "bump" that happened awhile after refinishing. To have a complete, working guitar, I just need pickups, electronics, and the bridge and tuners installed. This will be a lot easier than the purple kramer guitar, because I can just buy one of those inexpensive licensed Floyd Rose units, and the screw-on locking nut will be a DIRECT fit without any drilling or modification, and some Schaller locking tuners. The problem is....what color do I choose? Seriously, I'm having a hard time with this right now with the mockups below...

Another piece of engineering....is the pickups. I'm really on the fence on pickups on this one. I know, in general, what I'll want to install - something stupid hot in the bridge (ie 12K-17K Ohms), in the middle I'll want something a little less as hot - around 7-10K ohms - but either a hot rail or single coil, and in the neck - is where the BIG Questions need to be asked.

See, the Vester Concert series guitars have a HUGE wiring cavity - big enough I could cram EMGS, a Sustainiac AND A MIDI Pickup, and integrate them into the guitar's design, and still have it be clear enough to see everything neatly as a tech! If I do just the bare basics, that's a lot of wasted routing in the guitar. I even built a new backplate for it (the original was missing) - so I could literally make something crazy custom!

So I'm almost tempted, to make a more user-friendly version of my Kramer Focus 3000's "iSUSTAINTER" Setup - then have coil split on the bridge pickup, and possibly even, use ACTIVE pickups if I Can find them affordably enough. Then the 2 9-volt batteries live in the back cavity with their own dedicated holders.

To explain the wiring above, how it works is, all three pickups use DPDT switches, with the bridge one being a 3-way. The neck pickup is a single coil sharing the same "lobe" setup as the Kramer with the Sustainer (though I might put the Sustainer in FRONT this time because this is a 24-fret guitar, and thusly putting it closer to the middle makes it HARDER to stir the strings up). The neck and middle use 2-way DPDT switches, and these switches CUT OFF the 9 volt for the ISUSTAINER when these pickups are turned on. This gives two distinct advantages. First, no accidental squealing if the player forgets to turn off the sustainer before switching on the middle or neck pickups (Especially with high gain), and second, it gives the player shortcuts to tonal changes using the neck and middle pickups without having to remember to shut off the sustainer. Also, this time, the 9 volt will be connected to a stereo jack to cut power, even if the sustainer is left ON when the guitar is unplugged.

This means, the price-point I'll be shooting for will be under $450 on this guitar - and it will sell greatly, because people want a guitar with a sustainer at an affordable price. Also, I don't think anyone on the guitar market makes a 3 pickup guitar with individual toggles that has a sustainer. I suspect, a lot of guitar techs think this setup is IMPOSSIBLE. Well....I always find a way, lol.

I don't know what it is, but in recent years, it seems either they assume everyone installing these kits is doing so on a gibson style guitar, or they are just being lazy. The Floyd Special I bought, AND These Musiclily kits came with a "R3" Locking nut, which is 43mm wide, when most 80's metal axes are R2 locking nuts with a 42mm locking nut. And, the nut is way too tall for the nut shelf on a vintage 80's metal axe such as this vester - putting the strings almost 2.5-3mm too high over the first fret. This happened with the Floyd Rose Special for the blue Kramer build, and now this happened for this one. So I'm going to at some point, order an R2 locking nut for this one, and install that. Also, the screw holes for the R3 are a little further closer to the fretboard than on the R2, leading to a gap between the nut and the fretboard (throwing the intonation off).

Looks like I'll be auctioning off some R3s....though I'm tempted to actually put the R3 from the Special kit on Decoupage #2 (with a Floyd Rose Special to boot). Another irritating thing is they also insist on using the 43mm inertia block...why?

That said, the rest of the guitar is coming along fine. New switches came in, so now I can wire up the switching mechanism before I start ordering the additional electronics that will soup this thing up to insane levels. I've decided to use Guitar Madness SSH config pickups, most likely with a iSUSTAINER sustainer system in it (though the way VEYZ is throwing me discounts on their sustianers on e-bay, I might use one of those instead....but we shall see).

The wiring is almost all pre-staged, with the on/off for the sustainer also done on the neck and middle pickups. I'm also waiting on the R2 locking nut, and I bought a quartet of red-ring Gibson style speed knobs for my Kramer and the Explorer, so this guitar will get the speed knobs the Explorer has on it currently like it originally had. Locking nut is said to be in by May 1st but we'll see if that happens since it's coming over from China. I sold my other R3 locking nut, and this one will also likely be sold on e-bay as well. I've started clearing out parts I"m not going to use. One idea for the wiring is I might create a battery box for the 9 volt inside the cavity, so it's isolated and not flopping around in there. I'll likely be using some kind of plastic bracket type setup for that.

I also had to do the same lightly to the middle pickup cavity, because that cavity was a bit, uh, too small as well. So now everything fits. The next part is to order the Sustainer, and get the ears for the pickups.

I also took the speed knobs from my red Kramer guitar and put them on this as I bought a 4 pack of red-line speed knobs from China, and put two on the Kramer, and two on my Explorer (both my sustainer guitars).