Time to reveal goings-on with the Aria 5102T rebuild/zoot

slyd · 2011-07-07T17:02:12+00:00

Well, a coupley months back, I was brought this old early-70's Aria 335 copy. I t was sad . . . very sad. It had been the guy's (late some while) uncle's axe...

Time to reveal goings-on with the Aria 5102T rebuild/zoot

slyd

Well . . . more before's:

All usable chrome bits and bobs removed and sent for re-chroming

chris77

NoOoOo man! Don't re-chrome, just clean them properly. Worn bits add more personality to a guitar than a bottle of tequila does to a librarian.

slyd

Gotta re-chrome! The owner doesn't want a relic'd guitar, but a totally re-worked good-looker :-[

When pressing out the tuner bushings, 2 of them decided not to go alone, and took big strips of wood and finish with them. >☹ Oh well, a re-finished headstock will look nice, I guess. ?

Starting to strip the old bubbly paint off.

As the binding is all cracked everywhere, I decide to remove it all, and allow my heat gun to do the work. Without the binding at the neck pocket, more of the extent of the warping becomes evident:

Paint off

Hmmm after seeing the grain, I formulate my colour plan. Now if all goes well . . . . . . ???

slyd

makepeace wrote: Now there is an interesting approach to mounting P90's. Cool project ?

Are those dog ear P90's with a humbucker type pickup ring (but for dog ear P90's)? Seems the through holes are dog ear shaped. Whats the deal there?

Nope, no dog ears. P90's with a bucker mounting ring. Just the body cavities are shaped like that to accomodate the huge height-springs ?

slyd

The old inlays, some acrylic faux mother of pearl, have shrunk and warped:

Stripped the headstock, now you can see the 2 places where the wood had cracked out with the bushing removal. Hrmmmph*

The new nut, ready for shaping

the nut after shaping, ready for placement. Check the old one ?

Before stripping the headstock, I sourced the artwork for the exact Aria logo. I figured waterslide decal paper would do the trick, and started a mission to find some in this country . . . yeah right.
Now, the owner had asked that his uncle's (the late owner of the axe) nickname "Shakes" be placed somewhere on the guitar. Now with a stripped headstock, placement was wide open! :?
Started with sanding sealer, and 4 coats of black. Of course during most of the painting, I forgot I had a camera (must have been the fumes* ???)

I finally sourced laser waterslide decal paper, had it mailed to me, found a print shop willing to put it in their printer (geez, that was a mission in itself), and had the logo printed, as well as the "Shakes". It looked great in the gold :? Hahahahahahahaha. Get home with it, soak the decal, and slide it off onto my pre-painted test piece. The Gold disappeared against the black ? Now what ? A couple more tests proved that this was not going to work on the black. :-\ Oh well, Plan B I guess . . . . vinyl.

slyd

Yeah, waterslide decal . . . great against Maple or light colours, but the colour strength is not enough for a black background (what I found).
Anyway, gave my local print company the artwork for the logo and the "Shakes", and got them to make gold vinyl stickers for me.
I had them make me 4 of each, just for in case ? !
The "Aria" logo went on nice and straight first time, but I had to use a stanley-blade to peel off my first "Shakes" attempt, as it could have been called "I-lean". Got more clever putting on the 2nd one :-[
Here's a quick shot of the new decals under a mist coat of clear lacquer . . .

I sent the customer this pic and he was over-the-moon that I could put his late uncle's nickname there!
Here I go . . . . Spraymate clear lacquer for the next week or more . . . ??? You know what spraying to cover vinyl's like . .

costafonix

very cool, well done
looking forward to the next set of pics ?

slyd

As I said, I forgot about the . . . camera ?
Anyway, I sprayed, and sprayed, and sprayed, observing all the rattle-cans' directions (warming the can in hot water, warming the "piece", test-spraying, giving the can a GOOD shake for a couple minutes, etc. etc. . . ? )

All went puuuuurfectly . . . until I had to change to spray-can#4 (remember vinyl logos take a lot more coats to cover than normal). The h/stock was starting to look so good, I could see the broccolli in my teeth, it was so cool!
I gave a fresh coat from the new can to my test piece . . . . it looked fine . . . .. so I sprayed the headstock. As it started drying, I noticed a whiteness developing on the surface ☹ Suddenly I noticed my test piece also had gone "white" oh oh . .
I let it dry . . . it looked like tiny white spots mixed in with the clear. I thought maybe temp's were'nt quite right right, and maybe another coat might melt the white back in . . . . . So another coat I gave it :-[
Bad Move >☹ More white spotty coating!)

There comes a time when you realise you have to take a step back, just to move forward. I knew I had to sand off this "white spotty stuff".

Oh well, this gives me chance to level off the height of the vinyl logos 8) Check out the "blushing" or "blooming" (spottiness) of the clear on the surface :-\

Turned out, it was the particular can of clear lacquer. Part of a bad batch. (My fault, I didn't check to get same batch numbers)

arjunmenon

Looking good Slyd.
Love the picstory format.

Attila

very nice ..... I every now and again regret selling my 510T to Giggsy - he want to paint it white but changed his mind when he saw the good condition the finishes were

by the way mine did not have P90's in but rather strange buckers

enjoy .... Attila

slyd

Thanks for the comments guys ?

@Atilla - ask Giggsy to post a pic of his (your ex) 5102T. I'd love to see it for reference :?

To be continued, shortly . . . . . . . .

Attila

I will send you a few pics tonight

slyd

Attila wrote: I will send you a few pics tonight

Very cool . . . thanks 8)

Explorerlover

Gonna jump the gun and post pics of mine.....Attila, this used to be yours I believe ?... now fitted with new pups , electronics, nut, bridge and tuners. Costafonix really took good care of her. The man is a SAINT!!!!!

slyd

@Explorerlover
Wow ??? She is beautiful!
Love those pup mounting rings . . . . costafonix probably made those ?
Also, very different pups ? Those are some good-looking buckers ! Do you know what they are . . . . ??!

Any chance you could stick on a few more views . . . : front, back, tuners, side view, . . . . . just for me, pls

Anyway . . .prepare yourselves for "something completely different" (big boomy voice) when this project is completed. My vision of the end product is one of "contrasts" 8) . . . . no putting down the original styles in any way, but this one was so far gone that I had to have a target picture in mind before even starting !

Attila

thanks for posting ....... that is her .......... you Philstienes cant you leave anything standard ....... ? good thing I cant find my pics

Yaaa the electronics needed an upgrade, those pickups look like they could have come from Alan's box of tricks

http://www.matsumoku.org/models/aria/hollow/sem/semi.html

Funny enough I read some where that these guits were popular with punk muzos, because they were cheap and built like the preverbial brick shit-house, and could take loads of abuse ......saw a few butchered ones online

peace

Attila

slyd

Anyhoo . . .

wet-sanded for ever, trying to remove the spotty-whites . . . . ???

I was being vary cautious, not to sand into the vinyl of the logos.
eventually, . . . *phew* it's a new beginning

Hokay . . . back to the spraycan . . . :-[

Explorerlover

The pups are GFS Retrotrons, A nashville and a Memphis If I'm not mistaken. I had to make pup rings that would house a normal humbucker as well as cover the holes in the top where the old pups were in.

@ Attila....Nothing on there that can't be reversed, although, the original bridge pup was dead, and I'm yet to find a replacement that'll fit in the stock pup rings.
@Slyd....I'll try and get more pics loaded soon for you to check out.

Costa is a magician when it comes to these things...

makepeace

Here they are:

http://www.guitarfetish.com/GFS-Retrotron-Series_c_99.html

I've got a Hot Liverpool Neck (thanks chris77 ?) in my Harmony and it sounds excellent. Bargain IMO. Quite high output though, my Deluxe isn't too keen on it..