A few weeks ago I came across an early ‘70’s era Aria dreadnought-style, 6-string guitar and a local flea market. Some of you may remember the early Aria instruments. A lot of them were copies of major USA brands – in fact I think Gibson sued Aria also (like Ibanez) over a Les Paul copy.
Anyway this one I found looks liked a D-18 copy and is well-made – solid birch back/sides, mahogany neck, spruce top, rosewood finger board, bridge and headstock inlay with clean triple binding and three rings around the sound hole.
So I bought it pretty cheap and going to use it as practice instrument. I plan to convert it to an 8 string mando-something -- I'm thinking octave mandolin.
Last week I removed all the hardware, bridge screws and the nut.
I plan to fill the guitar tuner holes with mahogany plugs. Then after leveling I will glued on and trim up a fresh rosewood veneer and cut in a small MOP inlay.
I will refinish this later after drilling new holes for mandolin tuners - I have a jig that I made for that.
I also plan to reinforced the old bridge by removing the the screws (they had a bridge like the ‘60’s Gibson’s) – I will put a thin maple cleat under the bridge plate and secure it with two slim bolts with nuts/washers – in the old screw holes. These will be recovered by MOP dots.
I will make a new string hole on each end of the existing 6 to accommodate 2 new strings. A set of 8 rosewood bridge pins will secure the strings.
I am shaping a new nut from a bone guitar blank with 4 courses and making a new compensated bridge out of rosewood. My idea right now is to have the new mando bridge saddle slip into the slot on the old guitar bridge. See pic.
My only really big question is what range should I choose? I am leaning toward an octave mandolin – even though the instrument will have a body larger than a mandocello.
My plan is to by a set of light gauge D’Addario’s for a 12 string guitar and use the first four sets (i.e., the low E’s, A’s, D’s and G’s). I would tune these to an octave below the mandolin – starting with the second G below middle C.
I would think mandocello strings would be too much for this body design. Anyone have a better idea?
I will post more pics when finished.
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