Eros (Aria 1802T) resoration
- theworkoffire
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Eros (Aria 1802T) resoration
Disclaimer: No anodized guards were delayed in the making of this thread. This project is evenings only, when it's far too quiet to be cutting sheet metal.
I picked this up cheap on ebay - it's branded EROS, but essentially the same as an Aria Diamond 1802T. A white one of these was what originally inspired the first Motorik.
It's in pretty shitty condition, and I was going to just part it out and keep the trem and pickups, but where's the fun in that? The plan is to get this nicely playable without spending any money - just using up spares I have lying around in the workshop.
First thing I noticed when I got it was that someone has seen fit to install LEDs on the guard in the shape of a cross (?), and there are a couple of extra switches and knobs, one of which has a snapped shaft.
Quite why someone would want a cross lighting up on their pickguard is a mystery, especially on a guitar named after the Greek god of sex. Not the first icon you'd expect to see in the hands of an evangelical christian...
A quick peek under the hood and I had instant flashbacks to Motorik I Two battery clips - I tested one and it lit half the cross - nothing happened with the other. I'll investigate further later on.
Also, a couple of the intonation screws were, er, unusual. Really filthy bridge. I took it all to bits, polished it up and lubricated it. Also, I took out all the old intonation screws and re-tapped the saddle threads for some M3 screws I had to hand.
"Custom" - no shit. Most of the black paint came off the logo when I polished the headstock, so it's gold now.
There were no tuners, so I decided to put in a set of reissue Fs I have lying around. It had had similar before, which had replaced the originals. None of the holes were in quite the right place, so I toothpicked them with superglue.
Then snipped them flush, scraped them level, then wet sanded up to 2000 and polished back to a shine with T-cut.
Marked and drilled for the new tuners:
The frets were almost down to the board in places - not even worth stringing it up to check. I heated them with a big soldering gun until the mojo started to bubble, then prised one end up with a stanley knife blade enough to squeeze my pullers underneath.
Not a pretty sight, but at least not much chipping from the removal.
Then I sanded the board level with its original 9.5" radius, not too much, but enough to put a new surface on all but the deepest finger depressions and prepare a good surface for the frets.
All polished up and ready for re-fretting:
I picked this up cheap on ebay - it's branded EROS, but essentially the same as an Aria Diamond 1802T. A white one of these was what originally inspired the first Motorik.
It's in pretty shitty condition, and I was going to just part it out and keep the trem and pickups, but where's the fun in that? The plan is to get this nicely playable without spending any money - just using up spares I have lying around in the workshop.
First thing I noticed when I got it was that someone has seen fit to install LEDs on the guard in the shape of a cross (?), and there are a couple of extra switches and knobs, one of which has a snapped shaft.
Quite why someone would want a cross lighting up on their pickguard is a mystery, especially on a guitar named after the Greek god of sex. Not the first icon you'd expect to see in the hands of an evangelical christian...
A quick peek under the hood and I had instant flashbacks to Motorik I Two battery clips - I tested one and it lit half the cross - nothing happened with the other. I'll investigate further later on.
Also, a couple of the intonation screws were, er, unusual. Really filthy bridge. I took it all to bits, polished it up and lubricated it. Also, I took out all the old intonation screws and re-tapped the saddle threads for some M3 screws I had to hand.
"Custom" - no shit. Most of the black paint came off the logo when I polished the headstock, so it's gold now.
There were no tuners, so I decided to put in a set of reissue Fs I have lying around. It had had similar before, which had replaced the originals. None of the holes were in quite the right place, so I toothpicked them with superglue.
Then snipped them flush, scraped them level, then wet sanded up to 2000 and polished back to a shine with T-cut.
Marked and drilled for the new tuners:
The frets were almost down to the board in places - not even worth stringing it up to check. I heated them with a big soldering gun until the mojo started to bubble, then prised one end up with a stanley knife blade enough to squeeze my pullers underneath.
Not a pretty sight, but at least not much chipping from the removal.
Then I sanded the board level with its original 9.5" radius, not too much, but enough to put a new surface on all but the deepest finger depressions and prepare a good surface for the frets.
All polished up and ready for re-fretting:
- PorkyPrimeCut
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Re: Eros (Aria 1802T) resoration
My guess.theworkoffire wrote: Quite why someone would want a cross lighting up on their pickguard is a mystery, especially on a guitar named after the Greek god of sex. Not the first icon you'd expect to see in the hands of an evangelical christian...
Maybe this guitar would've been played upside down by some crazy Greek-god-loving devil worshipper?
Also, if you replace the O, R and E with A, T, A and N, then change the letters around a bit you get SATAN!! Man, it's obvious!!
Cool project by the way.
You think you can't, you wish you could, I know you can, I wish you would. Slip inside this house as you pass by.
- antisymmetric
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- ludobag1
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- theworkoffire
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Re: Eros (Aria 1802T) resoration
PorkyPrimeCut wrote:
My guess.
Maybe this guitar would've been played upside down by some crazy Greek-god-loving devil worshipper?
Also, if you replace the O, R and E with A, T, A and N, then change the letters around a bit you get SATAN!! Man, it's obvious!!
Cool project by the way.
Does this look like the road to hell(ios)? Whoever did the mods scrawled his name and number on the underside of the trem cover, the old-fashioned way: "Belper ####". Ten seconds of googlestalking reveals he's now the CEO of some robotics software company, a keen skier, and his mum runs a local art club and has parking issues at the shops.
Nice thought, though!
- PorkyPrimeCut
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Re: Eros (Aria 1802T) resoration
theworkoffire wrote: Does this look like the road to hell(ios)?....
Actually, yes.
You think you can't, you wish you could, I know you can, I wish you would. Slip inside this house as you pass by.
- Wessel.v.l
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Re: Eros (Aria 1802T) resoration
that guitar looks alot like the epihone et 270
Recording and studio engineer.
- theworkoffire
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Re: Eros (Aria 1802T) resoration
They were all made in the same (Matsumoku) factory.Wessel.v.l wrote:that guitar looks alot like the epihone et 270
- UC3
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Re: Eros (Aria 1802T) resoration
Hey Ben,
Glad to see I'm not alone in my obsession with the 'ol Matsu's.
The handsome cousin:
No LED's - had to settle for the rhinestone
The not so handsome cousin - twice removed
Looks like you might need some pickup-rings if you're going all original - let me know, one of three I have doesn't have any cracks at the corner.
I'd like to send you a .pdf if you have the time?
Glad to see I'm not alone in my obsession with the 'ol Matsu's.
The handsome cousin:
No LED's - had to settle for the rhinestone
The not so handsome cousin - twice removed
Looks like you might need some pickup-rings if you're going all original - let me know, one of three I have doesn't have any cracks at the corner.
I'd like to send you a .pdf if you have the time?
- theworkoffire
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Re: Eros (Aria 1802T) resoration
I can certainly find time for you! I'll pm you my email address - let me know what you have in mind.
If you have a spare pickup ring I'd be very interested - no plans to swap these out whatsoever, so a better one would be fantastic.
Your Aria is a beauty, but that UC-2 gets better every time I look at it. Gorgeous. Did I ever ask you about the possibility of a rough tracing of the body?
I found a metric thread that fits the Matsumoku trem collet, by the way - 5mmx0.9. The most common 5mm thread is 0.8, but I had a 0.9 thread gauge and it seemed to fit so I ordered a 5x0.9 die and it passes over the vintage arm thread with a nice snug fit. I've got some 5mm stainless rod in the workshop now so when I get chance I'll try my hand at making some arms - let me know if you'd like a couple.
If you have a spare pickup ring I'd be very interested - no plans to swap these out whatsoever, so a better one would be fantastic.
Your Aria is a beauty, but that UC-2 gets better every time I look at it. Gorgeous. Did I ever ask you about the possibility of a rough tracing of the body?
I found a metric thread that fits the Matsumoku trem collet, by the way - 5mmx0.9. The most common 5mm thread is 0.8, but I had a 0.9 thread gauge and it seemed to fit so I ordered a 5x0.9 die and it passes over the vintage arm thread with a nice snug fit. I've got some 5mm stainless rod in the workshop now so when I get chance I'll try my hand at making some arms - let me know if you'd like a couple.
- theworkoffire
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Re: Eros (Aria 1802T) resoration
"Any chance you could sort the kids' dinner out, love? I'm just off into the shed for a couple of hours"
So, inspired by PoppaPopp's question in another thread, I decided to put my money where my mouth is and test my method for adding retrospective binding to a neck.
First job, I used my fretboard sanding block jig to rout a 9.5" radius into a slab of MDF:
Then I scraped the edges of the fretboard with a razor blade to get rid of some nasty chipped lacquer that would have affected the routing, trimmed the slab down on my bandsaw, taped it to the fretboard, then trimmed it flush with the fretboard all the way round:
[Brief recess to pop round a neighbour's house and help plan how to plumb his bathroom waste pipes into a new soil stack...]
I wanted the binding to be a bit thinner than my router bit alows for, so I added a coupe of layers of masking tape to the edge before routing a channel all the way round the MDF:
Then I flipped it over and ran round the channel with some 180 grit sandpaper on a small block to get rid of any minor imperfections and square up the end of the board nicely:
Then I used a straight bearing-guided trimmer to extend the binding channel down half way into the fretboard:
Then before going any further I measured the height of the join between the maple and the rosewood to check that the bit would cut as close to it as possible. I needed to pack out the underside of the nut end with a few layers of masking tape to raise it slightly:
Routing the final pass:
End result:
Then I took my heat gun to the binding (gently) and moulded it to the end of the neck. I started to apply glue to the neck ready for binding, then my daughter opened the shed door and demanded I come in and help with bedtime, at which point I realised I'd forgotten to deepen the fret slots. Could have been disastrous. Off with the glue, back into the house in disgrace!
So, inspired by PoppaPopp's question in another thread, I decided to put my money where my mouth is and test my method for adding retrospective binding to a neck.
First job, I used my fretboard sanding block jig to rout a 9.5" radius into a slab of MDF:
Then I scraped the edges of the fretboard with a razor blade to get rid of some nasty chipped lacquer that would have affected the routing, trimmed the slab down on my bandsaw, taped it to the fretboard, then trimmed it flush with the fretboard all the way round:
[Brief recess to pop round a neighbour's house and help plan how to plumb his bathroom waste pipes into a new soil stack...]
I wanted the binding to be a bit thinner than my router bit alows for, so I added a coupe of layers of masking tape to the edge before routing a channel all the way round the MDF:
Then I flipped it over and ran round the channel with some 180 grit sandpaper on a small block to get rid of any minor imperfections and square up the end of the board nicely:
Then I used a straight bearing-guided trimmer to extend the binding channel down half way into the fretboard:
Then before going any further I measured the height of the join between the maple and the rosewood to check that the bit would cut as close to it as possible. I needed to pack out the underside of the nut end with a few layers of masking tape to raise it slightly:
Routing the final pass:
End result:
Then I took my heat gun to the binding (gently) and moulded it to the end of the neck. I started to apply glue to the neck ready for binding, then my daughter opened the shed door and demanded I come in and help with bedtime, at which point I realised I'd forgotten to deepen the fret slots. Could have been disastrous. Off with the glue, back into the house in disgrace!
- ludobag1
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Re: Eros (Aria 1802T) resoration
that is exactly the way i am thinking
nice as always more over this way you escape the truss rod accident
but i am jalous cause of the router to make radius and 2 for the binding ,cause mine is very rought and yours seems to be very clean ?
on mine the 2 edge seems to go out from a band saw ?
nice as always more over this way you escape the truss rod accident
but i am jalous cause of the router to make radius and 2 for the binding ,cause mine is very rought and yours seems to be very clean ?
on mine the 2 edge seems to go out from a band saw ?
- theworkoffire
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Re: Eros (Aria 1802T) resoration
I've no idea where this binding came from - Tonetech, maybe. It is very smooth - extruded rather than cut on a saw. It's not tall enough for Fender-style bound necks, though, which is why it was lying around waiting to be used here. The only bits that need to be sanded slightly are where the tight corners are - when it bends it pushes out at the top and bottom slightly.
- garyptaszek
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Re: Eros (Aria 1802T) resoration
love seeing your work Ben!
- weed_killer
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Re: Eros (Aria 1802T) resoration
I love the restoration so far, but my only suggestion would be to tint/age the binding a tad.