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. He had managed to dig it up, and REALLY wanted it fixed-up (although everyone told him to buy a new guitar!). Big issues: body separation, neck-pocket displacement, top warped away from neck pocket, general warping, neglect, sun, water, rats, spiders, etc. Once I found the neck was cool, and my wood-prof told me we could re-shape some wood, . . . I was off . . . . . . . . Check some pics: Just some of the before pics, . . . what a hectic journey and learning-curve ? Many more pics and details to come . . . :-[

slyd

Well, the "small diversionary job" I had to do this morning, turned out to be bigger than I thought >☹

Later this evening, I managed to get a little time fondling the Aria body, and all her curves ? and preparing for assembly . . .
Busy loading pics and news . . . . . . .. . ..

StephenG

slyd wrote Well, the "small diversionary job" I had to do this morning, turned out to be bigger than I thought >☹

Later this evening, I managed to get a little time fondling the Aria body, and all her curves ? and preparing for assembly . . .
Busy loading pics and news . . . . . . .. . ..

i wanna see............. I wanna see.................. I wanna see.......... >☹

slyd

OK . . got a bit of time . . .. to get a feel . . . .

Slippin' into the mood . . . celebratory scotch involved . . ..

gotta peel away the neck pocket masking . . oh, so very carefully. . .. leaving a bit of gentle-sanding to be done.

gently opening the screw-holes to avoid cracking of finish when inserting screws . . ..

After all the hype . . . .I had to . . . .. had to . . .. assemble . . .. .SOMETHING . . . .

And then . . . .what colour screws for the Jack-plate . . . .???

These . . .

or these:

I thunked the black screws looked better

StephenG

frigging stunning man !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and black screws for sure !

slyd

StephenG wrote frigging stunning man !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
and black screws for sure !

I agree on the black. . .tanks *

VellaJ

slyd wrote After all the hype . . . .I had to . . . .. had to . . .. assemble . . .. .SOMETHING . . . .

Haha! Ah, how I know this feeling ?

shaundtsl

Ah man, that guitar is looking beautiful.

singemonkey

When you're done with it, I think the people who sent it out of the factory would weep with amazement to see it. It's going to be better than new.

Wizard

singemonkey wrote When you're done with it, I think the people who sent it out of the factory would weep with amazement to see it. It's going to be better than new.

Better than new?
It's an entirely new invention ...

slyd

Just a step back . . .for info. ???

I'd taken note on other threads, where guys had issues with there being little support for the strap-button screw on the horn of a hollow-body .

I did'nt take a photo of it, but I had shaped and glued a piece of wood into the horn, to take care of this. You can see it a bit in this pic from the body glueing sessions :

Now I can be sure there won't be any screw thread slippage in the future on the button here:

Was able to screw the button nice and tight ! :?

giggsy

Nice fix there with the strap button!

slyd

Thanks :?

slyd

Not too many distractions today . . . .

Of course had to resize the pot holes . . . . very carefully. . . . don't wanna rush anything at this stage:

The wiring harness . . . waiting to be harnessed . .

The holes in the knobs needed to be resized to accommodate the pot shafts (although they were supposed to fit - thanks stewmac >☹ )

Inserting the trem plate ground wire . . to be connected to the harness ground.

Alright . . .the string thing . . .(no strings attached ? ) preparing my pull-through method for wiring a hollow-body (my own design, don't know how it's normally done)....

Soldered the tail piece ground to a pot . . .

and then time to attach all the stringy things, which had been carefully labelled, and routed with no cross-overs . . .

Calling for the assistance of my dear wife, (this was no 2-hand job), we pulled the harness into place with the stringy things . . .

Sounds simple . . .hehehehHAHhahahaha MMMwwwwhahahahahahah drool . . .drool . . .. :-\

MikeM

That's a miracle ??? it's almost impossible to work on these things.

Hahah man turning out really cool.

slyd

Okay . . reminder to self. . . when doing a stringy-thing pull-through, don't leave the tag-ends of the knots too long . . . amongst other things :-[

But, hey, all in all, it worked . . .!!! ?

And then to add the knobs . . . . .ahhhhhhhh . . . a vision in itself . . .

To Be Continued . . . . . soon . . . . . ?

Neon-Gecko

Simply STUNNING! :applause: It's almost a shame to give it back... ☹

costafonix

:applause: :applause: :applause: :yup: :yup: :yup:

Warren

Just goes to show, knobs make everything better. 8)

MikeM

Warren wrote Just goes to show, knobs make everything better. 8)

There's a joke in there somewhere.

Bob-Dubery

Looking good - and looking better all the time. Such a cool photo-journal and I hope it's a rewarding journey for you. It's a lot of fun watching it.

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