Prostheta

Nothing but let that nitro breathe. It'll take a long time to offgas adequately since nitro never really "cures" as such. That said, a better choice than poly!

What clear/lacquer are you guys using as a replacement?

That's a difficult fix despite cracks normally being fairly easy. The wood (Chestnut? white Oak?) on the wings is coarse, and when that cracks it likes to stay that way....or give you nice gluelines! Part of me wants to kick you in the shins for letting her get this way, however you seem to have figured out what the proper way to treat this lady is. :-)

"That's funny. The damage doesn't look as bad from out here"

Excellent, cheers Pete/Bartleby! That finger and the text might look good on the rear of the headstock.

It's just a flesh wound! I hope that the CA used in the fretwork cleans up well. That's a lot of squeezeout! Good work on the waterslides. Any chance of sharing the image file? I think Pete has the same text also, however I don't know how clean a version we have in the "Aria Pro II" community at large. Even though the first batwings weren't produced until 1977, a first release bass would make a great 40th birthday present for me....I'm sort of a '76 vintage so it's either that or a Thunderbird. I think an original T-Bird pup would cost more than a reasonable condition '77 batwing....! Looking forward to seeing another one of the old girls getting back into her prime. She's certainly been around some rough lads it seems....haha

Blech. The XRB reminds me too much of the Jackson Performer style. Works better as a five though. It would have to be reversed of course. The RSB is really nice, but there's something very "afterthoughtish" about a 4+1.

Yeah, they're soapbars IIRC. Same as their current "MB-V" pickups in the SB-1000s, there is no guarantee that they'll resemble the originals. Hell, an MM-5 would be just as awesome, especially if I got a ceramic version and gold-plated the steel slugs. That seems to be Aaron's standard boilerplate response to APII pickup queries. Hotter doesn't make sense, because overwinding raises output and alters the resonant peak. In addition it loses top end rather than gains it. I'll feed back into this thread when I monkey around with a replacement varitone. Alternative values are probably a better solution. I'd go with Veijo Rautia's pickups any day. They are the real deal in terms of like-for-like replacement. Aaron's are rough approximations, however don't take my word for it. Hell, do.

I've been GASing to build a ZZB 5-string Black n' Gold for far too long. Certainly won't happen with Veijo's pickups however a 4-string version wouldn't be out of the question. That said, the question could be, "batwing?".

Wow, that surprises me. That would imply that both coils died! I guess the epoxy wasn't impervious to those damp conditions. Just re-reviewed the thread. I didn't read your posts Pete, so I feel dumb for having repeated most of what you'd already said. All together now...."duhhhhhh" I'd genuinely consider Rautia Guitars' pickups over Aaron Armstrongs. I guess I was somewhat put off his pickups by our previous discussion ending with a fairly dismissive implication of throwing random coils in what was meant to be a reproduction pickup in all respects, not just in appearance. Half measures sort of bug me, but that's probably Aspergers for you.

I was thinking about this today....I'm only speaking from memory here, so bear with me. The MB-1E had a four-conductor-and-shield cable. I would think it worthwhile checking each individual coil for objective comparison. They are configured in series, so each coil should be around half of the 11,8kOhm total DCR. Two of the wires are connected which is the common point between the coils. A fun addition to an SB-1000 would be a second DPDT toggle to reconfigure the pickup in series and parallel. Not heard of anybody doing this yet. That's sort of beside the point though.... The issue not being intermittent almost rules out a problem with the pickup cable. Otherwise, it does sound like the pickup has bitten the big one. Sucks.

If that's the case, pickup it is. I genuinely am confused as to the number of these i hear going down. The epoxy should preserve it until proton decay.

If the pickup is in circuit, you're measuring the resistance of the coils in parallel with the rest of the circuit. In isolation it should be something around 11,8kOhm off the top of my head.

Additionally, I sell repro preamps loaded with the best components for the job. Mine was the one pictured earlier on in this thread. You can easily make one from parts from Maplin for half the price of course. It's no secret that I make a bit of profit off them, however that all goes towards keeping ProjectGuitar.com online so it's all in a good cause anyway. :-) When you build your own, ditch the 4558. They are seriously crap. Even a TL072 is better, and don't buy into any of the JRC4558 mojo crap hanging over from the Tube Screamer crowd either! You'll want either a Molex KK header or a TE CST-100. Failing that, a simple break-off header pin row should work too. Also also, ditch the tantalum capacitors. The guy who made his own homebrew preamp re-used tantalums, and for no good reason. The originals were like match heads (nice old 70s tech) when they failed and I've head stories of smoking BBs in SB-1000s. Modern tantalums are better, but still explode when reversed in circuit. Simple electrolytics do the job of supply line buffering and supply noise rejection. Also also also, that is why people report "clicks" on their v2 (1980-86) SB-1000s in time with the LED. Those tantalums degrade and allow fluctuations on the supply from the LED blinker to affect the BB circuit. Tock tock tock tock....

Local dude Veijo Rautia makes proper thermo-formed cases with duplicated internals unlike Kent/Aaron's which are made in a simple epoxy mould. Veijo ("vay-yo") also reproduces the MB-1E, MB-II, MB-III, etc. so you have options. Last I discussed with Aaron is that he would "throw a couple of stock coils in" which says "approximation" rather than "reproduction". http://www.rautiaguitars.net/aria-pro-ii.html Cleaning the varitone is a good idea, however since the "fault" is common to all positions on the varitone, I suspect component age on the resistors/caps. PITA to replace them though! I'm trying to simplify making replacement varitones if worst comes to the worst. It's important to correctly identify the fault (if it indeed is one) first of course. I genuinely suspect it is because the varitone makes the tone very very deep and perceptually quieter. Any chance of a sound clip?

The rotary is a hardcore LPF so some drop is to be expected, but a large drop in volume might be an issue. Possibly old components? The only way to know for sure is to AB it. I haven't gotten around to making replacement rotaries yet. Designing a PCB to make it simpler to choose values first...

Yep. It states both values on the upper (lower?) casing; 20k and 500k.

The first generation SB-1000 was active only. No passive option at all. The switch brought the varitone in or out of circuit. Have a look at the circuit diagram posted previously if that makes sense.

I'm not sure of the battery life of the original 4558s, but it doesn't look fantastic on paper. They're early 70s design and the supposed mojo about them in overdrive pedals is just a myth. It wouldn't surprise me if the Tantalum supply smoothing caps in the BB were just leaking current. 4558s are a minor step up from the legendary u741 in terms of junk mass tech. Cheap is the word.

No problem! Happy to share. I should have put two and two together and realised that yours is a first gen SB-1000. I'll have a look over the circuit again and figure out why it's lopsided on the supply end of things. That's quite weird. Short of a component age issue in the BB itself, nothing springs to mind in the design at the moment. I guess you could measure the current consumption of each side of the supply. Another possibility is one pole of the DPDT switch in your jack socket might be seized closed, causing the battery to permanently be in circuit?

Hi again - I'll do my best to work through this page's posts and clarify what I am able to. As we've established with Clarky72, his bass is a 1984 second-generation SB-1000 whose pre-amp has been replaced with the ones I manufacture. The smaller more compact box is the replacement pre-amp whilst the larger flanged box with the double-sided tape attached is actually the original. "Norris' pre-amp runs one battery flatter than the other" This might be in part due to the LED circuit loading one half of the supply and not the other; sitting over one 9v supply and not the full 18v potential. The LED circuit is a simple blinker which only operates when there is battery power. There is no battery monitoring going on, except for "I'm monitoring your batteries by slowly killing one of them faster than the other". Component aging makes the caps on that (of itself weird) circuit become leaky and pushing spikes onto the supply rails which the BB can't discard as noise. A lot of people rip that LED out because of that. I don't blame them. I'd rather use up the fourth pole of the 3/4PDT to make an active/passive indicator using one high value resistor, a low-current LED and running it over the full 18v. That's just me though. "Thin farty noises" Those are guitarists and totally not the fault of your bass, Norris. The photo of the spare pre-amp is one of the second generation of BB pre-amps. In essence they are identical to the originals except that they include reverse polarity protection diodes. Whilst this isn't the most common mode of failure in BBs (that would be the trashy 70s Tantalums) they do protect the pre-amp from accidental reversal when fitting new batteries. Whilst you have a jack in the socket. In the real world, who does that? The socket is on the face of the bass which would be face down whilst operating within the ratnesting of cables going on in the SB-1000. Simple best practice, but perhaps not so from a manufacturing perspective. Nice weird you have going on there, Aria. "Unused pins" The first generation of SB-1000s ("batwings") were fitted with an MB-I pickup which had different internal wiring to the subsequent MB-1E. The MB-I could be coil split and (if I recall this correctly) the shielding wire was connected to the end of one of the coils? I haven't looked at this pickup configuration issue for a long time so feel free to fill me out on where I might be forgetting things here. The shielding of the pickup is still connected to ground in both circuits, albeit not through the connection in the pre-amp in some circuits is all. Feel free to do a continuity test between pin 8 and the shield braid of the pickup. ;-) It makes more sense to earth the shield closer to where that cable is anchored (the switch) rather than making a separate run to pin 8. A star ground near to the switch is good practice if you're making up an SB-1000 loom from scratch. "11-pin BBs" Don't exist. I would like to be proven wrong because I love anomalies and picking them apart. This diagram was a PITA for me at one point. So I changed it to reflect reality instead. It might be that a limited run of 11-pin BBs were fitted to two-pickup instruments like the SB-R150 (I still want to capture one of those in the wild for "permanent examination") however I am sure that the pickups would be switched rather than individually sent through the pre-amp. Then again, Aria were certainly weird and fundamentally Japanese. "Enjoy The Gig With.... diagram" That is the first generation SB-1000 which was active only. [quote]“Everything should be made as simple as possible, ... I think nature teaches us that, and we learn it time and again in work and in life. - Albert Einstein[/quote] "Bizarre dual-gang pots" Yes, they are bizarre. Nobody makes them and for good reason. Nobody uses them. The reasoning for these in the second and subsequent generation SB-1000s is that you have two completely separate circuits living in there. On one hand you have what is more or less a first-generation SB-1000 circuit (active) whilst the second gang is passive. The output impedance of an active circuit can be far lower than a passive circuit, so the values of each gang reflect that. The active gang uses pot tracks in the order of 20-25k and uses a tone cap reflecting that difference in the LPF RC tone control. A lower impedance allows for less treble loss over cable runs from cable capacitance, no pickup loading and all that other good active stuff we love. The passive circuit on the other hand is your vanilla circuit. "RI BB circuit" I spit on this for a number of reasons. For one, it adds more complexity to the circuit which is does not need or benefit from. The SIL across the left is a Mitsubishi alarm control chip which serves as a battery blinker (ask me why mixing digital and analogue circuits onto one boards is bad practice), however my real issue is with the addition of transistors to the mix. The circuit does not need them. Also....tiny cheap carbon composition resistors? One would like to think that some effort were being made to kill all noise wherever it might appear....metal film resistors are not expensive, and given Aria's slack decision making in banging extraneous components in there anyway they could at least go that extra mile. The jury is out on whether the RI is any different to the original circuit, or is it? I have nothing to weigh in here other than the proliferation of what I see on the boards. "Mad Inventions" The work on that site is 100% correct as per the first generation BB. At risk of sounding like I am "pushing my product", I do question the component choice for the same reasons as the previous comments. Go big on everything; durable Nichicon caps, better ICs and socket and low-noise metal film resistors. In this case, "vintage-correct" is probably not for the best :-) "first/second generation BB compatibility" 100%. The only difference internally is the addition of reverse-polarity diodes. I've oven-baked, taken a hammer to and marmalised five different v1/v2 BBs and haven't seen any real oddities. Some questionable soldering and acid flux being left in situ (a minor failure possibility) but nothing that would make any of them incompatible. "BB circuit trace" (Pete) Yep, that's the plain old v1 circuit. The soldering is better on that one than the ones I've demolished. No cold joints or solder blobs to be seen! "v1,3" I only marked up the PCBs to differentiate between what was in stock. I upgraded components in addition to the PCB on this one. These were still single-sided boards whereas the newer ones (v1,4) are double-sided. Minor component placement changes also. This only removes the jumper link really, but does allow me to run a wide ground plane across the top of the board to capture any stray signals. In testing I couldn't find any difference between these revisions other than some minor satisfaction for my obsessive attention to detail. In other news, I am finishing up a custom bass build I started last summer. Work has caught up with me on my degree so everything has been crawling along at a pace I am not entirely happy with. The bass itself is a 5-string version of a '51 P-Bass which I have decided to equip with a single pickup and a hybrid Noisekiller circuit. Active only, with a volume and a varitone. I'll report in with more at some point! I really should get that pickguard cut.... [attachment=183943:10649078_10152850705510676_7367130201754990187_o.jpg]

Thanks Pete. I'll try and chime in with a few comments to clear up some misunderstandings about both the BB ("black box") and the SB-1000 tomorrow.

Hi all - I'm sure that some denizens on here know me from PG so hey. I'm looking for pickup covers similar to those [url="http://www.mojotone.com/guitar-parts/pickup-covers-bass"]sold here[/url]. I'm planning to build an Aria SB-1000 copy from scratch and I would love to explore the possibility of winding my own MB-1E pickup copy (strange P/J hybrid) and covering it with something like the Alembic cover on Mojotone....are covers similar to this available within the EU? Shipping and import from the US sucks major balls in terms of cost! I believe the actual MB-1E has similar dimensions to an EMG-35, but with tapered ends same as the Alembic. If I manage to get ahold of them, I might do some experimentation with different winds. Good times. Anyway. I'll stop talking before I go off on some mad tangent like usual. Thanks!