The Guitar Gallery Forums - The Guitar Legacy of Matsumoku

I need some help locating a neck for one of my aria's.It's an arch top Diamond 5102T (1970-1975) (ES-335),serial no.317XX, with an original bigby B3, and has vintage HB-1 guild pickups(very,very powerful and sweet sounding ) I bought this one on e-bay.The neck was replaced with an aria neck of the same type of guitar model but probably a late 1970's one. The frets are worn and don't have enough meat on them for a fret plane.I would like to try and get the original neck for it. I'm also wondering if it came with the original bigsby thats on it? thanks,jim



aquilina@stargate.net

The neck might be a bit of a toughie. The Conrad and Lyle I have both had the same neck as the 5102T and both had truss problems so I had no choice but to swap them out. I would imagine that is what happened with the one you have if the neck is in fact not original.

Occasionally I see a Conrad or Lyle on eBay in semi-parts condition. That would probably be your best bet if an Aria in parts condition doesn't come along.

The original pickups were not guild, but decent once dipped nonetheless. The trem was a Bigsby lookalike and functioned pretty much the same but was not an original Bigsby. Kindof sounds like the previous owner did their best to keep it alive and playing.

Hello ARiAPROII, thanks for your insight. What I decided was, why not try a fret plane, as I had nothing to lose anyway! I leveled them all with a 15" radius sanding block, and then crowned them with a file and finished them off with various grits of sand paper....It turned out decent and plays with a much lower action now... the frets themselves are pretty low but work great...