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Restoring An Old Classic
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26-09-2008 7:09am#1I picked up this old Aria Pro II recently. It's in fairly poor shape, even for a 25 year old bass, but these basses are genuinely superb and criminally underrated. It's well worth fixing up. I'll be doing a fair amount of work on this, including fretting and electronics, I thought it would be fun to document it here and ye can see what's involved for those of you reluctant to gut your guitars and set them up again. With a bit of effort, it doesn't cost much to bring an old classic back into its prime.
5 piece maple and walnut neck through with ash wings. It's a serious instrument, made when Japanese instruments were really kicking the hole off their established American counterparts. Some would say they still are
This is among the first great original designs to come out of Japan, it owes as much to Alembic as it does to Fender, it has it's own character, certainly not a copy.
Thankfully, the truss rod nut is in good shape and works, the neck is straight and true. There is a reason to continue.
The original tuners have been swapped out for... wait for it... Dixon brand tuners. Jaysus. Where is the love? This will not do.
The gloss on the neck has seen better days too. I think I'll strip the back of the neck altogether and oil it instead of this thick plastic coat.
This bass has two stacked vol-tone controls, one for each pickup, each humbucker pickup has a serial-parallel switch and there's a three way pickup selector switch, it's very felxible for a passive bass. Some tool has been dicking about with the electronics though, there's some dreadful soldering in here. It's a bit of a mess. That's ok though, I suspected it'd be worse and I'm changing this anyway. I'm going to replace the three way switch with a blend pot and swap the second vol-tone stack for a 2 band pre-amp wth bass and treble controls. The other vol-tone will now be a master volume and passive tone.
Eugh. Is this 25 years worth of finger gick?
First things first, let's clean that crap off the fretboard. There's a lovely slab of rosewood here, waiting to shine again. You might be able to see the fret condition there. Nothing majorly wrong, just some ruts and a sub-standard levelling job done at some point in the past. I'm going to level and dress the frets.
To be continued...2
Comments
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Good call on an oil finish on the back of the neck, would look sweet. How about the body?
You gonna do the fret level yourself Doc?
Nice project, definitely keep us posted
Gonna take some time and a whole lotta patience I'd say, but good luck dude
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Cheers guys, more on the cost later, let's just say it hasn't been finalised yet, it's ongoing at this moment in time... long story for another day
I've got an Aguilar OBP-1 preamp on the way, should get a fair amount of work done over the weekend, the fretting at least.0 -
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Yeah I've thought about it boycey, but I firmly believe it's as important to know how to set up your own guitar as it is to know how to tune it. There's nothing complicated about setting up, once you know how it all works and what you're aiming for. Granted, some of the stuff I'll go through here is beyond a mere setup but I'll go through setup steps at the end. It kills me to see people paying money for something they could very easily do themselves.
Anyway... Part 2!
Back in its rightful state, so long Dixon tuners.
I spent most of this evening sanding off the thick poly coat from the back of the neck. It had a couple of bumps and dimples in spots where you'd feel it while playing so off it comes. I haven't oiled it yet, which is why it looks so pale. First I sanded to remove the poly and then used a medium metal wool to smooth it all out. Tomorrow I'll go over the back of the neck again with a fine metal wool.
After I removed the poly which was also covered the sides of the fretboard, I did a bit of side-scalloping, basically taking the hard edge off the sides of the fretboard, making more of a gracious curve instead of a sharp angle. It's a subtle thing but makes a huge difference to how the neck feels in your hand. You can probably see some of the filing between the frets at either edge of the fretboard. After I level the frets I'll sand the bejesus out of it (albeit very gently) to make it feel like a neck that's beautifully broken in, like it has been played for 50 years. As I was about to start levelling the frets, I covered the top of each fret with a black marker. Already you can see where there are some grooves in the frets where the D and G strings have worn into them. This is pretty much the way it is all over the neck, under every string.
The point of using the marker is as you level the fret, the marker will disappear and the metal of the fret will be revealed. Where you still see marker you know you have to level a bit more, you know it's not level at that point. Ideally you want to take as little as possible off the top but that depends on the condition of the frets. If you look at the 9th and 10th frets under the G side of the fretboard, you'll see what I mean. This procedure is the sort of thing that can really **** up a guitar, so you have to go slowly, go gently, do a few passes instead of blitzing it all in one go. I'm using a block of wood with some fine sandpaper to file the tops of the frets. You can use metal files and other griding techniques, but I like doing it this way and it has yielded the best results for me.
With the levelling done I'm left with a flat top on every fret. This isn't great for intonation so now I have to file a dome into the top of each fret, a procedure called crowning. The likes of Stewmac have a selection of crowning files designed specifically for this purpose. Again, I've put black marker on the top of each fret to help me do this right.
The idea is you file away but leave a thin line of black marker on the top centre of the fret. This means you don't interfere with the leveling job you've just done and you take away the thick flat top on each fret, leaving it rounded and much more pitch accurate when you fret a string, as the contact point of each fret is exactly where it should be in the middle of the fret and not mooching closer to the bridge as would be the case when the top has flattened. In the pic I've done the first five frets, you can see the difference in how much of the fret will make contact with the string (ie, the black bit) between the 5th and 6th frets.
And again, the third fret shows up well in this pic. You can see the metal filings which have been removed.
Once the crowning was done, I went over each fret with a medium metal wool to smooth it all out. I also smoothed out the sides of the fretboard at this point. I'll do this again tomorrow with a fine metal wool to make it smoother again.
Now to oil the fretboard and let it soak in for the night. It really shows the sweet wood which was hidden under all that gick. The frets are looking good, I'm confident this will play well when all this is done. I'll need to lower the nut to make sure it sets up well, but that will wait until closer to completion when I string it up.
The Aguilar preamp arrived today, plus the good folks at stewmac delivered the blend pot, so the electrics will be under way soon, though I'm still waiting for a stacked pot from EMG to control the preamp, the 500k ones on the bass won't do as an active preamp control. I'm already thinking about just how to wire all the controls, it's gonna be a bastard tbh
Plus, there's a pickup situation to be resolved...0 -
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Savage thread doc, where did you stumble upon the aria?
It was on adverts.
I've got two Aria SB's, one of them is similar to this. Except it has all gold hardware, two volumes, a tone and the switches instead of the stacked volume and tone arrangement. It's also got black stained wings instead of red. :pac:
It's in almost new condition and has the original case & documentation too. :cool:
I'm a bit of an Aria fanatic... was about to grab that one Doc got but had second thoughts. I've also got a 2007 Custom Shop "Cliff Burton" SB (un-official signature bass).
I'm happy to see that Doc is fixing this one up and giving it some new life.
The SB's are truly fantastic instruments, they have their own distinct sound and also balance perfectly on a strap. The downside is that they weigh a ton! :eek:0 -
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Very nice bass doc. We need moaar pictures of thisAs in a score, as in 20 notes haha. Its not this bass but one of there guitars, it always played ok considering the condition it was in, frets and neck were in good condition. Think i might give him a buzz the weekend have another look at it.
Make sure you can date it to older than 1988. Because I believe they stopped making them in Japan around then afai.0 -
Very nice bass doc. We need moaar pictures of this
Make sure you can date it to older than 1988. Because I believe they stopped making them in Japan around then afai.
It was '88 or '89.
After the Matsumoku factory finished producing instruments for Aria in '87. The new models were announced beginning '88/'89 and these were made in Korea (with some exceptions).
Doc's bass was made by Matsumoku in Japan in 1983.
My Aria is an SB Elite II which is Post-Matsumoku era (non-recessed Jack and no serial number), it was discontinued in '88. From speaking to other Aria owners I've heard that they outsourced to another Japanese company while the transition to Korea was happening. I believe that the bass may have been made by one of these companies in Japan.
The case with my bass is Japanese and the documentation is all in Japanese too. The pots are regular sized rather than mini like on the Korean ones and it retains the original pickups and bridge. Later models made in Korea used P & J pickups, regular Soapbars and generic bridges.
Unfortunately though, Aria's history is very sketchy between '87 and the late 90's as there was a fire in the Japanese factory in the mid 90's which resulted in their records for earlier years being destroyed.0 -
Time to have a look at the nut and the bridge. Both show signs of wear and need a bit of TLC. The bridge saddles on these follow the template of the Badass bridge and, like a Badass bridge, really need to have a groove filed into them for the strings to sit properly and not move about. Without it, the strings will settle in different places every time you restring and sometimes can even move on the saddle while you play. An Aria I had back in the late 80's had this bridge so I've experienced this myself. If you look at the G string saddle you'll see where the contact point is in rag order with a couple of separate ruts where strings have worn in different places. This will need to be taken care of.
That's better, every string will now have it's place, no lateral movement and a clean contact with the saddle. I cleaned the nut and also gently filed any damage to the grooves, it's as good as new. I've filed clean contact points into the nut similar to the bridge so there won't be any stupid problems when I string it up. In typical early 80's styleeee it's brass and, as a result, picks up all kinds of **** and is easily damaged if not looked after. I will end up filing some of the bottom off this when I set up the bass, I like a low nut, so the action is like having a zero fret. It's amazing the difference in colour, once you remove 25 years worth of gick.
Since I'm adding active electronics to this bass I'll make sure it's shielded fully too.
I have most of the wiring done, pics will follow.0 -
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Electrickery time. The key to getting this right is preparation, know exactly where every wire is going before you warm up the soldering iron. I did a big and messy schematic which I forgot to photograph, spent a while on it just so I knew where I was going to route everything. I find it helpful to simplify the signal path in my head and then work out which wire is attached to which lug. Essentially, the pickups go to the switches, the output of the switches goes to the blend pot, the blend pot goes to the volume, to the tone then outputted to the EQ which sends out to the stacked bass and treble boost and back to the EQ, the EQ then goes to the jack. Easy peasy :pac: There's also a lug on the jack which goes to the batteries which goes into the EQ. Then earth everything
If you're gonna solder anything, take it all out of the cavity to make it easy on yourself. I like to make a cardboard template of where the pots go and work from there. I've not finished, I'm still waiting for the second pickup to arrive, so I haven't cleaned it up yet, but essentially it looks like this.
Which looks like this when you install it. When the second pickup is wired in I'll tidy it all up. I'm still waiting on a battery clip too. I chose to put the EQ in the middle and, as a result, there are wires going off in all directions the way the pots are laid out. I've got some velco on the EQ module to keep it in place. The batteries will go in the space above the volume/tone control.
It looks a lot better from this side and, most impotantly, it all works as I'd planned. Which is nice.
I'll start on the set up next while the pickup situation resolves itself. For those who haven't set up a guitar or bass I'll cover what I aim for and how to get there. I'll also be filing the nut a bit, the action is set on both ends of the string, which some people overlook 0 -
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Just waiting for Lance Armstrong to sort me out with a pickup
They be DiMarzio Ultra J's, I'm installing series/parallel switches for them in a vol-blend-tone setup. Once piece ash body which I painted over the weekend, mighty mite neck... it's coming together nicely. I must find the (very) old thread on it and bump the **** out of it 0 -
Just waiting for Lance Armstrong to sort me out with a pickup
They be DiMarzio Ultra J's, I'm installing series/parallel switches for them in a vol-blend-tone setup. Once piece ash body which I painted over the weekend, mighty mite neck... it's coming together nicely. I must find the (very) old thread on it and bump the **** out of it
Jaysus.... We have some very similar basses now...
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Not at all. This is the most deliciously contoured Jazz ever, it's comfy with a capital kuh! Plus, it's practically vintage, see?
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054862392
Must dig up them pics 0 -
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Not at all. This is the most deliciously contoured Jazz ever, it's comfy with a capital kuh! Plus, it's practically vintage, see?
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054862392
Must dig up them pics
Have you got any pics of the contours? The links in the thread are dead.
Who made the body btw??
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No idea. Got it off ebay for about 80 dollars. Unfinished, one piece ash body with 70's pickup spacing. This whole thing will work out less than 500 quid all in... which is nice
I'll take some proper pics when I'm finished. Although you can see in the pic there there's no obvious line for a forearm contour, the whole thing just slopes back really gradually. The back is the same, sits on my fat belly just rightHave you got any pics of the contours? 0 -
No idea. Got it off ebay for about 80 dollars. Unfinished, one piece ash body with 70's pickup spacing. This whole thing will work out less than 500 quid all in... which is nice
I'll take some proper pics when I'm finished. Although you can see in the pic there there's no obvious line for a forearm contour, the whole thing just slopes back really gradually. The back is the same, sits on my fat belly just right
Nice! :cool:
Although I like the contours on the Jazz body as normal. The body on mine is build to 60's specs.
Are the pickups being made by Kent or Aaron?0 -
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