Aria 70s Model 1820 Rebuild - ideas for rebuild?

[Phat_Jack]

Found this old Aria Model 1820 being throw out on the side of the road yesterday. Beat up with hideous repaint job, but neck is straight and bass is very light. Not that I need any more projects atm with a B15 amp build underway and mixing a new EP but what the heck. Always been on my bass bucket list to do a rebuild. Im keen on any suggestions from the talkbass community on the rebuild. I'm thinking to ditch the original pickups fill the gaps and reroute and drop a musicman style humbucker and 3band active premp in. Is this a dumb idea?

 

[96tbird]

Looks like fun. I think you'll find that the string spacing is pretty narrow for MM pickups, so measure up and begin your search. Personally I would be looking at TV Jones stuff: expensive? ,yes but the guitar was free so….

otherwise, nothing dumb about your project. It'll be cool.

 

[RSBBass]

Now that is a natural relic.Keep an eye on ebay, you may find some original pups. I would do the minimum to make it play well.

 

[Arie X]

i'd try to restore to oem were it mine. the pu's might even still work. all of the other electrical stuff is replaceable. big questions are about the neck and pocket.

are those 'roo tracks on there?

 

[Phat_Jack]

Looks like fun. I think you'll find that the string spacing is pretty narrow for MM pickups, so measure up and begin your search. Personally I would be looking at TV Jones stuff: expensive? ,yes but the guitar was free so….

otherwise, nothing dumb about your project. It'll be cool.

Thanks for the suggestion I will check out the TV Jones Stuff. That's my rationale as well. Cost me nothing and the objective is to get a great medium scale light weight player.

 

[Phat_Jack]

Now that is a natural relic.Keep an eye on ebay, you may find some original pups. I would do the minimum to make it play well.

I haven't tested it yet, but the lady who put it on the side of the road recons the PUs and electrics still work.

 

[Phat_Jack]

i'd try to restore to oem were it mine. the pu's might even still work. all of the other electrical stuff is replaceable. big questions are about the neck and pocket.

are those 'roo tracks on there?

Lol, no roo tracks!
There's a couple of local guys who do up early Japanese guitars and basses and a really clean stock Matsumoko Aria of this vintage would get around $500AUD. Unfortunately the purple refinish that was done at some time in its previous life went over the headstock as well. For vintage resale value I think it is pretty low unfortunately. Based on that my take is to make it into decent player with a sound I'm after. I have a currently have a P, jazz, L-1000 and a Squier Jaguar hence the thinking of going with a active hum bucker option. The neck is nice and straight but haven't checked truss rod yet to see if it all works.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

That looks like a fun project, at least you have the pickguard, sometimes the first thing to trashed. it cost nothing, and you owe it nothing, go nuts.

 

[Phat_Jack]

That looks like a fun project, at least you have the pickguard, sometimes the first thing to trashed. it cost nothing, and you owe it nothing, go nuts.

Funny enough the pick guard is one of the things that's making think of keep existing pick ups or at least getting some custom pick ups to fit. Don't like my chances of getting a pick guard to match changing over to a say a single humbucker, but keeping that overall pick guard shape as I quite like it.