The Guitar Gallery Forums - The Guitar Legacy of Matsumoku

I recently got this off of ebay and I put in parts from a very heavy bolt neck Westminster LP clone (that sounded amazing). While I was putting it together, I noticed just how odd this guitar is. I put the photos from the original ebay listing here, as they are pretty good: https://imgur.com/a/jZywVJS

Some interesting things about this guitar that may or may not be the norm for Aria LP clones:

- Set neck, but the neck tenon seems to extend all the way into the neck pickup area. I think Gibson stopped using long tenons in '69?
- Speaking of pickups, this seems to have been fitted with some much larger than humbuckers. I had to position my humbuckers very carefully to not leave any extra gap routed in the top (maybe dogear p90s were originally there?). The "tan lines" in the finish and the original screw holes also show much larger pickups were original to the guitar
- It has a void of air under the top (like the Westminster that donated the parts)
- It's very light. Only 8lbs full of parts. 7 as just a husk.
- The neck pickup route is very shallow. I had to trim down my pole piece screws a bit to get it to fit at all
- The open book headstock has the pineapple inlay, which I haven't seen on any Aria LP
- The electronics cavity is routed for smaller than average pots (vs full size pots)
- The bridge posts were drilled at 25" vs 24.75". Intonation was kinda a pain, but I just barely got it by flipping my donor bridge around
- The tailpiece posts were more narrowly spaced than any one I've seen before. I ended up having to grind away some of my donor tailpiece with a Dremel
- It has superrrrr tiny fretwire. True fretless wonder
- It seemed to originally have gold hardware
- It has a super thin d neck profile, similar to my Univox Effie or Hagstrom II
- Lastly, it has a 7.25" fretboard radius, which is just wild

Arias during that period were in a state of flux. The odd size post spacing and tiny fret wire is no surprise either. That neck joint was used regularly, I had an early 70s Aria SG like that. The arched ply top is not uncommon either for that period. Even my Aria Pro II PE-450 is this way. Import pickup rings are normally larger than you'd find on say a Gibson. That's one way to tell a Chibson, large pickup rings. On the other end of the spectrum my CS-350 pickup rings are actually smaller than Gibson's. I have seen a number of early Arias that had what looked like humbuckers but were in fact single coil in a humbucker cover which may explain why the fit was tight. The stock pole pieces may have been shorter or the original cover and bobbins shorter. They were very low output on average compared to contemporary pickups.

I saw that on eBay some time back.

Sounds like you've given it new life. Those old Arias had a certain vibe to them.

That all tracks!!! This is honestly a very fascinating guitar and it’s really fun to play. Definitely love my old Arias.

Here’s what it looks like all finished (this room is very trashed): https://imgur.com/a/M877PH9

Nice job!

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