[BL] Aria Guitar

[Feronix]

Heya guys!

So the strat is all done and it came out so much better than I (or anyone) could ever expect for the €70 that I paid for the kit (and then €40 in paint).
The purpose for that guitar has always been to play pop-punk ish songs in standard E tuning (though it goes til Drop D flat nicely, anything under that will cause too much fret buzz, but that's not what stratocasters are for anyway imo).

I have always wanted to get a second, decent guitar while I had the cheap stratocaster as a sort of placeholder as I'm massively into post-hardcore bands with a heavy sound that the strat just doesn't do without a load of effects from an amp as it's got a thin, basswood body and only has single coil pickups.

So I was eyeing up an Epiphone Les Paul Standard model, which are known for their thick bodies, and shorter scale length necks which make for nice low tones.

But, just buying a guitar and having it gets a bit boring if you've modified and built a couple and I also had some plans of creating a complete scratch build which would be more of a mix between a stratocaster (body, neck) and a Les Paul model (bridge, humbucker pickups).

This is where Wraithguard comes in as THE ULTIMATE HERO and offers me an Aria Mac50 model guitar, a perfect base for the 'scratch' build

It is on the way to me right now and should arrive this afternoon, so expect lots of pictures!

But here, you guys can have a teaser of what I plan to do with it:

 

[Feronix]

Updaaaaaaaaate

My parcel arrived this morning! Got lucky, I was up all morning, had all the doors open and a dog who barks at everyone who walked past, yet somehow managed to miss the delivery guy coming at my door and I was faced with a note that luckily it'd been delivered to the neighbours.
Walked over to their house and there it was... just lying in front of the front door. What the actual f**k, but oh well, I have it and that's the important thing

What's in this box? A monitor?

Nope, foam!
But what is hidden in the foam?

Guitar parts! And he even included an effect pedal, what an absolute legend Thanks so much Paul!

Right, time for me to get to work. I always start with the neck and headstock cause it's the least effort. Taking the tuners off first of all:

They're off!

Next up, truss rod cover and nut

For those wondering why I'm stripping it down; It's pretty beaten and I'm going to try my very best at fixing her up to near perfect condition, and even making it my own a little more, while still honouring the all black look (and making it even more black).

Got the backplates off revealing the electronics and spring system of the tremolo bridge (an actual real Floyd Rose )

Got the bridge out:

Taken the knobs off which have a lot of wear on them, so I've ordered a couple of new ones that should arrive tomorrow

It was then time to start de-soldering the pickups out so here are some pictures of the wiring for those who enjoy it, but I mainly took them as a reference for myself

My totally-not-ghetto soldering set-up! Also had a moist sponge in a plastic tray :lol:

Over-exposed picture of every wire ever that has somehow been squeezed into a single guitar cavity.

Properly labeling the wires so I know where they need to go back later

Output jack:

Time for some stealthy pick-up covers!

Put some masking tape on top of the coils to stop them from vibrating against the plastic covers.

These single coil covers basically just screw on.

The humbucker was slightly trickier. First I roughened up the plastic where I had to connect it with a razor.

Better

It clicked in nice and smoothly

Scraped some candle wax where I had to join the metal with the plastic and heated it up a bit with the soldering iron. Melted perfectly and it's now on nicely and secure.

This is how they're going back in the guitar later. I'm going all out with the black!

The completely empty body front and back, ready for some hard manual labour (ew)!

Started sanding, more updates tomorrow!

 

[MrKambo]

oooooooooo

I like this!!

 

[Feronix]

Right then! I've been sanding for a long... long time now so I figured I'd give you guys an update in the mean time. Often in guitars, they are given a veneer top in combination with semi-translucent paint for a cool effect on the front, this is what I would've loved to do but the chances of that were very small.

Until I started sanding her down and was greeted by a veneer layer!

The sad part is that it is placed between the paint and the wood, so I have to sand the paint off while not going through the veneer layer... This is why sanding takes so horribly long, but it's worth it as it looks awesome! Same image as above, but now after cleaning

I checked and the veneer goes over the entire top of the guitar which is awesome. I do wonder why at some point (probably in the factory) someone went through the effort of putting this one and then completely covering it with paint.

All the pictures from now on are just from today from nearly 2 hours of sanding!

Progress

Slightly more progress

Little more progress.. fml

This one if 5 minutes after the previous picture, spot the differences and you'll have a pretty good idea of how slowly this is going. Can't use a sanding pad either as it has a carved top, so it isn't flat. Looks brilliant, but is inconvenient for now :lol:

 

[SPS]

You need a belt sander mate :lol:

I remember hand sanding an Alu bike frame that had about 20 coats of pikey paint jobs..

 

[chrismjurd]

looking good, keep it up!

 

[Lazlo]

Great job so far. Hope the nice top will give you a good result when you refinish it.

 

[Feronix]

You need a belt sander mate :lol:

I remember hand sanding an Alu bike frame that had about 20 coats of pikey paint jobs..

I would but the surface isn't flat so that'd be extremely difficult and it would probably sand much, much too fast and take the veneer layer off with the paint!

looking good, keep it up!

Great job so far. Hope the nice top will give you a good result when you refinish it.

Thanks guys!

Yeah it's gonna take a couple more steps which are easy to screw up (and I am a clumsy person whooo) but as much as I really, really want to get this finished and I'm excited for the end result, I really should take this project slow and 'luckily' my health only allows me to do so much in a day.

 

[chrismjurd]

really actually like the thinned out black to purple you got there atm too, quite pleasing to look at.

 

[SPS]

I would but the surface isn't flat so that'd be extremely difficult and it would probably sand much, much too fast and take the veneer layer off with the paint!

Oh yeah, it would probably destroy it..

It would seem that guitars provide quite the nice little mod/restoration project without requiring too much technical knowledge.

 

[Wraith]

Had it all this time and never knew it had that grain beneath the paint, I thought it was a moulded resin body how wrong was I its coming along beautifully.

 

[Feronix]

really actually like the thinned out black to purple you got there atm too, quite pleasing to look at.

Aye, it would look great with a red-ish purple and black sunburst too! But that's not what I'm going for

Oh yeah, it would probably destroy it..

It would seem that guitars provide quite the nice little mod/restoration project without requiring too much technical knowledge.

Don't want that, rather take my time then!

You're right, other than the soldering and just basically knowing how it all works it's not difficult at all electronics wise. What I like about them is that they combine wood-work, paintwork and electronic work into one project so there's a lot of variation and a lot of space to do your own thing.

When I'm done with this there won't be a guitar in the world exactly like it and I love that thought.

Had it all this time and never knew it had that grain beneath the paint, I thought it was a moulded resin body how wrong was I its coming along beautifully.

I kind of had a feeling when I Googled the model and the blue and red versions showed up with this top and a semi-transparent paint over top, but I didn't expect this one to have it as the paint was solid black.

Pleasant surprise though, I can now make it basically exactly like I would've wanted to scratch build and save so much money that I don't have It really is the most perfect base that I could imagine for this project.

 

[Feronix]

Small update

So, so done with sanding!

While I couldn't be arsed to sand the body anymore I decided to work on the neck... by... sanding it down. I don't really like most finishes on necks cause I find especially with high gloss paints your thumb tends to stick to the back of it when you get a little sweaty.

I decided to sand it down and it is now suuuuuuuper smooth!

I then started treating it with black wood stain as it goes into the wood rather than laying on top, so the neck stays smooth, but does go black. Or well... eventually

This is how far I am on the body since yesterday, I am not sanding today cause aaaarrrghhhhhh :lol:

 

[Feronix]

Update

Did some work on the neck with the staining, it's starting to look like it!

In all fairness it looks better in the picture than it does in real life so far, but it'll get there.

The problem is that the wood is really hard, so the stain has trouble sinking into it. I didn't want to just use paint though, as I honestly prefer my guitar necks sanded down and super smooth, rather than paint which tends to get sticky, especially when you start sweating a little. Still wanted it all black though!

With the wood stain, it goes into the wood itself, rather than creating a layer on top of it. This means the neck stays suuuper smooth. On the downside, it needs pretty thick layers because of the hardness of the wood as mentioned earlier, but I can easily sand this down with a very, very fine sanding pad between layers and it just feels really good :')

There's one part where it won't really stick yet, I suspect it's because of the angle. When the main part of the neck is done I'll lay it down so that bit faces upwards and then fix it.

From here on in this week I'll just keep working on the neck. The slow sanding process on the body of the guitar has taken its toll on my own neck so I'll need to wait until my dad's right hand has recovered from surgery so that he can help me with this.

I'll provide as many updates as I can but euughh... health

 

[Kleptobot]

This is awesome stuff, I really like seeing peoples other projects on here. Sorry to hear about your health issues, it's fantastic you don't let it stop you doing the things you enjoy.

 

[Warchild]

haha the funny thing about your project is that you are tearing it down to restore and make it new. Yet people pay ALOT of money to do the exact opposite and antiquate their guitars to make them seem used

Looks like a fun project though.

 

[Tolemac]

I hope your Dad's hand recovers well mate . I always loved working on projects in my Dads garage with him

 

[Feronix]

This is awesome stuff, I really like seeing peoples other projects on here. Sorry to hear about your health issues, it's fantastic you don't let it stop you doing the things you enjoy.

Thank you mate! I just gotta pace myself which isn't my strong point but it'll be fine
Got another guitar project on here if you're interested, it's called 'Custom Stratocaster'.

haha the funny thing about your project is that you are tearing it down to restore and make it new. Yet people pay ALOT of money to do the exact opposite and antiquate their guitars to make them seem used

Looks like a fun project though.

Aye, personally I'm not a fan of that as it gives the guitar a 'fake' character, but the used look does look really good on certain guitars. Like vintage or punk looking strats and telecasters. On a Les Paul for instance, it'd just be a shame and I think this guitar too would look better without. Besides, I gotta make it my own little baby

I hope your Dad's hand recovers well mate . I always loved working on projects in my Dads garage with him

Thanks mate, I'll pass it on! It is going in the right direction but he can't really use it intensively yet. Guess you don't know how much you actually do with your right hand until you can't use it for 2 weeks :lol:

 

[Tolemac]

Thanks mate, I'll pass it on! It is going in the right direction but he can't really use it intensively yet. Guess you don't know how much you actually do with your right hand until you can't use it for 2 weeks :lol:

Both myself and my father are/were left handed but my Dad could use tools in either hand

 

[Feronix]

Both myself and my father are/were left handed but my Dad could use tools in either hand

I'm really glad that you have good memories mate And sounds like he was a handy fella.

Can I not just borrow you for a week to sand that thing down?