The fifth guitar that I'm working on is an old Aria Pro II XR-Series Electric. Although the pawn shop guy was hoppin' up and down to get rid of this nightmare -- a left-handed guitar with no strings, pickups literally falling off -- he still wouldn't give it away.

Once I tried playing left-handed. I thought it would be handy since I would be able to lie in bed and play guitar without hitting my wife in the head with the headstock. It didn't work out so well, though, so I'll be making this Aria into a right-handed guitar.

I think this will be an interesting guitar to work on because I get to cut a lot of wood away from the neck and see if the neck stays on or pops off from string pressure. I plan to leave a little wood on as long as I can get my hand around it. The body shape is sort of a Strat-shredder type. I'm no artist, but I intend to paint a giant lizard on the body with the lizard tail curling around underneath the neck.

Another positive about this guitar is that the radius is already 15-16 inches overall. I don't want to compound this neck. The neck is bound, and this will be the first neck I've worked with that is bound.

I start by cleaning the guitar and removing the stickers, put the pickup pieces in my pickup box, and dissemble the guitar. The body finish is probably polyurethane, but I plan to just lay nitro-cellulose over it anyway. Maybe I'll put Bull's Eye SealCoat down first for a barrier.

I can't imagine how much DNA has been left behind on this old guitar from all the guitar players it has obviously endured in the past. It looks like a guitar that's been around for a long, long time -- I think internet information is that it was made in the 1970's.

The fretboard doesn't look like it has been refretted (at least not by a beginner like me), but the frets have definitely been dressed a couple of times, as they are squared off on their top edges.