almost completed setup and mods to my ES 175 copy jazz box

Keira-WitherKay

above is the guitar before the mods........

as you might know a few weeks back i bought this guitar ( see pic ) from gumtree........ it's a late 60's or early 70's Aria ES175 (gibson ) copy

the finish is in good nick , but the guitar needed some work..........

so 1st step was replacing the tuners with vintage high end tuners that have the plastic a wonderful vintage green ish colour........ i don't know what brand they are but stuart goodwin from marshall imported a whole box of em to use to replace his tuners on his own gibson so i trust they reputable.....

then the worn wooden saddle was replaced by a metal tunamatic saddle (bridge piece) same as on les pauls....... it was strange cos the wooden bridge just popped off the wooden base with screws and wheels for height adjustment and the new bridge just slipped on so no sizing issues.fabulous and now i can set intonation better with tunamatic than the static bridge........ however being a metal saddle replacing a wooden one i was worried that the tone ( which sounded awesome) would change after the mod....well i must be going deaf cos i heard no audible or noticeable difference in the tone ........

well onto the nut ...... i was wanting my guitar tech ( JD from JD custom..who's worksout is upstairs on the premises of marshall music woodmeads shop ) to replace the nut with a graphtec one . but on closer examination he told me not to cos the one (which i took for plastic) was actually a bone nut ..and advised me NOT to change it cos it was in good shape and he just reshaped the grooves and did what people do to guitar nuts.......

i had the frets dressed and the action set up to super low........ it was quite high action before to keep all the notes from playing clearly but after the fret dress and nut adjustment ( slots were lowered considerably on nut ) and truss rod adjustment the action has every note clear at a flat relief so awesome........

then i wanted a pickup mod..i loved the neck pickup how it sounded but added a contact type pickup as one fits to acoustics under the top to make the top active so i can do my percussion tricks on the top ........ and then i got JD to disconnect the bridge pickup totally ( i play fingerstyle jazz so the bridge pickup is useless to me....in fact most jazz guitars that are used by fingerstyle players only have one pickup in the neck position ...see joe pass guitar and martin taylors ect ect ) but i got him to wire it so i can play the guitar with the combination of the neck pickup and the contact pickup under the body ( picking up the top of the guitar ) .........then the volumes and tone will be one each for neck pickup and one each for contact pickup ( since bridge pickup is now disconnected)

however as soon as the next time i can get the guitar to JDwhen i get a break from my gigs hopefully next week if the part is available.i want JD to fit a 5 way rotary switch and reconnect the bridge pickup....so effectively have 3 pickups but right now i don't need it but i might wanna play more than just jazz on this baby ....

so yeah in a few weeks my hard to keep in tune high actioned gumtree buy( which admittedly had awesome tone as it stood thats why i bought it ) has blossomed into a slick low action easy to play , dripping with vinatge tone jazz box now that the mods and setup are done .....

i can't wait to play tonights gig and put it through it's paces.......

oh and i replaced the strings witha set of Thomastic swing jazz flatfounds.....they thick ( 12 - 50) but oh so vintage sounding

btw i did mention JD( details above) and would definitely allow him to work on any of my guitars so yeah just giving him a punt as a tech .......

Squonk

Good Stuff Keira, must give us feedback.

Do the Swing Flatwounds give you that Joe Pass kind of sound??

I will be doing a similar upgrade to my Jazz Box, when the funds are there ☹

I will have to replace the pickups as well, the Neck pickup is average but the Bridge one sounds like pea soup.

ActionArnie

Very nice ?

Keira-WitherKay

Squonk wrote
Do the Swing Flatwounds give you that Joe Pass kind of sound??

.

well on this aria guitar with it's pickup it gives a strong bass tone with fat rounded top end.... no sharp edges at all......and walking bass lines sound fat and realistic...... hard to compare it to joe pass directly but it sounds 100% jazz and won't be confused with anything else.... remember i play with nails not a plectrum so i get a different sound with my fingerstyle technique ......to say a plectrum player but they really heavy gauge ? with 50 on the top so don't expect to bend any but the thomastic range also have a "bebop jazz set" with is much lighter and round wound the set i fitted was the much heavier Thomastic "swing jazz set "

PeteM

Thanks for the update - sounds awesome.