I've been playing this guitar the past few days. I like the fretboard radius and the general feel of the instrument. The intonation is off -- a lot -- and I've re-set it as close to right as I can by ear. The tremolo bridge has a slight angle five to ten degrees, I'd guess. The notes, both open string and fretted, have a slight buzzed or blurry sound, not ringing out clearly. I wonder if the buzz will go away if I level the bridge, or should I angle it backwards? I check the truss rod and notice that the neck is almost perfectly straight. I loosen it just a bit to give a slight relief. The notes still sound unclear, but I like the general feel of the guitar in spite of that. I also like the shade of the finish.

Right now the guitar has basically been restored at a simplistic level and looks pretty good. If I were just restoring this guitar, I would never do this, but I'm thinking of refretting it. (These frets are too skinny, anyway.) I'll spend some more time playing this guitar just to be sure that's what I want to do.

I replaced the nut yesterday. The Stew-Mac nut slotting gauge was a real help. It makes the cutting of slots go a lot faster. Since this is a temporary nut replacement, the strings were not lowered to their lowest position. I tend to keep them at least 0.030-inch above the first fret as a temporary measure. For this temporary nut, I used plastic.

I also purchased lacquer shade #28008, Ford Engine Red, by Model Master TM Custom Lacquer System, at Hobby Lobby to see if I can match the body paint color.

Back to work on the Aria Bud-Strat:

I installed the six-screw "vintage"-type bridge that I bought at Dallas Used Guitars. This bridge was a real deal; they sold me the bridge, saddles, claw, springs, and all the screws for only $10. I know this was just a loss-leader to get my attention, and it worked.

I strung up the guitar with the strings that came on it. It's pretty obvious now that the nut needs to be replaced, at least with a temporary one. For now, though, I just re-adjusted the radius of the bridge saddles to match the fretboard and balance the tremolo. I set the intonation and was ready to play.

So far the shade mix is not exactly right. I've read that Fender used a Ford auto lacquer for their Fiesta Red color, so I will have to try that. Unforunately, I do not have it today.

Another problem is that the surface of the guitar body is not quite level.

I'm getting ready to add color to the guitar body. From Hobby Lobby, I bought lacquers from the Model Master TM Custom Lacquer System in shades of Chevy Engine Red (#28006), Gloss Red (#28001), and Turn Signal Amber (#n28004). I'm mixing the lacquers several different ways, attempting to match the shade of red already on the guitar.

Today I am sealing the newly added guitar body structure in the bridge area, using the Bull's Eye SealCoat.

I found the bridge I'm installing on this guitar at the Dallas Used Guitars booth at a local guitar show. First I need to re-build some structure to which the bridge can attach. Using wood filler in layers, I am building up the missing guitar body around the bridge area. This is very tedious.

The entire neck and headstock are being darkened just a bit. I lightly sanded the neck and then coated it twice with a mixture of nitrocellulose lacquer and some red dye from Castin'Craft. It darkened the wood beautifully.

Today I've been using Bull's Eye SealCoat to seal the filled hole in the neck. I brushed on several coats; each coat dries pretty quickly. I also removed the tuners.

I filled the hole in the guitar neck using wooden toothpicks and Franklin's Liquid Hide glue. This seemed to work well. I used the X-acto saw to cut the toothpicks off flush and then threw some water-based stain on it before it dried to darken the filled-in area. It actually seemed to take the stain okay.

This sixth guitar that I'm working on is also an Aria brand instrument. It's another Strat copy.

This one has "Budweiser Aria" inscribed in black on the headstock and "TRUE B MUSIC" printed in big gold letters on the body.

The body is painted a bright fiesta red and will be in fair shape after I peel off the stickers and clean it. The fretboard is rosewood; the neck is maple. Radius is about 15 inches all the way. Fret width seems skinny to me at 0.087-inch. Neck width at the nut is 1.6955 inches. [Wow: That seems fairly wide compared to some of my other guitars.] Tuners are not sealed, but work tolerably. Pickguard, electronics, and pickups are standard for a Strat copy. The strings are really light, probably down to 0.08-inch on the high E. There are two gull-wing type metal string retainers.

The big problem with this guitar is that someone has drilled a very visible hole in the headstock at the point where the truss rod emerges. Someone also removed the original bridge and succeeded in replacing it with an obviously homemade version of a roller bridge. This bridge, though, is not adjustable for either string height or intonation and is not a tremolo bridge. In fact, it has no claw, springs, or tremolo block. For some unknown reason, a previous owner also felt the need to dig out the wood around the bridge area.

When I asked the pawn shop owner who was trying to sell the guitar to me why anyone would want to drill a hole in the neck, he turned his head aside and mumbled something about the guy wanting to hang the guitar up on a wall. [Honestly, I'd swear his face turned red when he said it. Some time passed before I found out why he might have been embarrassed about it. More on that later.]