Briansbrew

5 hours ago, Prostheta said:

She looks great, @Briansbrew. A credit to both Matsumoku and your dedication in peeling back 30+yrs of what looked like heavy use. I admire these basses because they are just resilient, mighty instruments. The fingerboard and fretwork looks great, and that nut is just perfect. Absolutely fantastic.

I like how your decal is actually the '70s script ("The Aria Pro II") from the batwing version. I always preferred that one myself. 

Glad to have provided what I could to fill in the gaps. As I always say, these basses are rapidly becoming a "new vintage".

Thanks Carl,

It was a pleasure working on this beauty, very sturdy construction and will last for many years to come, yes the fingerboard and frets came up great-years of neglect but easy to enough to bring back to life. Well pleased with the way the nut came out. All in all a great project and thanks again for your input and explanation of the electronic side of things. 

The decal was purchased from Rothko and they has this decal on their database so I like it too, pity about the Gold but hey the bass plays well and thats all that matters.

Well ladies and gentlemen my project is now complete and here are some pics of my beauty.

First I would like to thank Carl (Prostheta ) and Norris for their help and input to this project, it really was good of them.

I finished the bass in Try oil and the result was much better that I imagined and easier to apply than spraying. The decal was tricky for me and the only mistake I made was to get it in gold instead of black which would have stood out better but we cant all be perfect. The stain on the back was too deep to get fresh wood but that was years of playing and worn through the lacquer.

It plays fantastic and the action is great, took a while to get used to the string spacing as it is fairly parallel but goos once its mastered. 

anyway some pics guys.

Yes carl that makes sense now that I understand the working of this loom. 500k for passive and 20K for active, would the sound be vastly different in mine compared to an all original SB100. I don't suppose there is much that can be done to improve it.

Funnily enough the grounding issue is not there today when I used a different practice amp.

All good stuff and I have learned a great deal so far about these Arias, they did say you were the Aria man, very True

More pics to come this week

B 

Facinating stuff Carl, you mentioned that my pots may not be original but when I took the loom out I forgot to photograph it for the thread but on closer inspection (see Pic ) on the vol pot it says 500k ohms x 2 and on the tone pot its got M 500K ohms,  20k ohms have a look at the pic and see if thats the case, one pot sits on top of another for both vol and tone, still dosent explain the the different shafts though. Hopefully they are original, sound wise it is great but I do not have anything to compare it too.

I have disconnected the LED wires but I would like to take the PCB out as well, would this compromise the circuit.

Thats a neat looking loom  by the way Carl, good steady hand

Hi Guys,

All the finishing work is now complete, parts are all back on again and she is playing great.

I was worried that the batteries were draining quickly but that was down to poor quality and I have also deactivated the LED indicator which was pulsating and annoying.

Anyway what with the bad weather I wanted to take some pics outside but this has been delayed until next week so I will upload them then so you can see the end result, Im quite happy with it.

Brian 

Nut cut to shape and polished before I cut the slots then remove it from the Bar, brass is great to work with

23 hours ago, Norris said:

That's about the best shot I can get of the nut using my mobile phone camera. My digital caliper says the nut is 45mm

Hopefully you should be able to zoom in. Hope that helps 

Norriss your a star, thats perfect. I did a quick sketch last night to see how it worked out but I only got the outside strings based on my other basses but I wasn't sure if they were equally spaced centre to centre but your pic is great so now I  can get on with the first cut, don't know what to use yet for the D and G slots as luthier tools are expensive for this type of work.

Cheers

13 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Hi, Brian and welcome!

I love Arias.  I've worked on one in the past and have seen @Norris 's in the flesh.  Beautiful!  

With the care you're taking on this one, I'm sure yours will turn out just as good.  Watching with great interest.

Hi Andy,

Thanks, I will be hopefully finished this in a few weeks time but loving the challenge. 

Hiya Curtisa,

Sorry didn't get the section right but thanks for sorting it for me.. We were lucky in our town as we escaped most of the snow thankfully.

1 hour ago, Briansbrew said:

Thats a beauty Norris, lovely finish 

18 hours ago, Norris said:

I could measure mine but I'm not sure if it's exactly the same spacing. It's the earlier model without the recessed jack socket

Thats a beauty Norris, lovely finish 

22 hours ago, ScottR said:

I'm looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

And before I forget....WELCOME!

SR

Thanks Scott, twill be nice when its done 

4 minutes ago, Norris said:

I could measure mine but I'm not sure if it's exactly the same spacing. It's the earlier model without the recessed jack socket

Hi Norris, I do have an SBR60 which is in storage and see if thats the same width, the SB1000 is 45mm wide but some of the later ones like the SB600 are narrower so its down to a bit calculating the string spacing but thanks for your help.

B

As promised some pics of the near finished body but not in all its glory. Bridge finished and installed, that was a bit fiddly to clean up but plenty of patience is required.

I started the brass nut today but I need some accurate measurements of the nut slots spacings. Any help appreciated

Prostheta has advised me to leave the finish to cure for a couple of weeks before buffing the final coat.

New decals will be ordered but I dont know what to go for Gold or Black

Hi Guys,

This is my first post on this forum, my refurbished Aria SB1000.

Its not finished yet but I hope to have it complete in a few weeks time. When I got it the bass it was in quite a state, looked like it was in a shed or garage as all the screw were badly pitted and rusty, the lacquer had pealed and chipped in places, buckle rash at the back but generally not to bad body wise considering.

I was worried about the pickup and wiring due to its storage and it was dead when I first plugged it in. The toggle switch was broken but I soon had this replaced and thats when it came back to life, the batteries drained quite quickly so I contacted Prostheta who gave me loads of advice on this matter. Good input from Norris as well on the finish.

The nut was missing and I used this old jazz one I had to hold the strings in place whilst I tried it out. A new one will be made of brass. 

Anyway here are a few pics when I first got it. I was not too keen on the walnut finish anyway so a full strip was the only way forward.

More to followe