Westone Thunder III Bass Version 1 (1983)
Body is solid Canadian ash, with a through-body heelless neck which is a laminate of maple and walnut with a 24 fret ebony fingerboard with snowflake inlay position markers.
- P/J style pickups with 3-way selector switch
- Phase reverse, 'dual tone' (Series/parallel) and active tone switches
- Volume, active and passive tone controls
- Brass nut, saddles and bridge , anodised aluminium brass effect backplates.
This bass is exactly the same as the second version of the Thunder II bass
Version 2
The design changed sometime in the mid 1980s, I've seen a few like the one below which have different (Magnabass?) pickups and black hardware
- The body is Ash, Hard Maple through neck, Rosewood 22 fret fingerboard.
- 2 Magnabass T pickups
- Controls - 3 way pickup switch, master volume, master tone, equalizer tone, coil tap(*), dual tone and active bypass switches
- Magna Cast bridge, black hardware. Available in Walnut or Ash Black
(Info from the 1986 and 1987 German catalogues)
According to the 1987 review of the Thunder III fretless, the nut is graphite and the backplates are black plastic.
*this may be an error in the catalogue - there are several others. According to the 1987 review and the 1983 catalogue this was a phase reverse switch