Hi-Flyer Project!

[Pilgrim]

Yesterday I won an Ebay auction for something I've been wanting for a long time - a Mosrite copy. Most copies are Univox, which I like, but this one is an "Aria Diamond", which is a totally new one on me.  it's a project that will need pickups and other pieces as well as a refin, but I'm excited at the prospect. 

The headstock is natural finish, and I would rather not mess with it.  I'd like to leave the original decal intact.  The body wood looks pretty decent, so I may go with a natural finish.  Natural would look good with the pickguard material. Any opinions?  And does anyone know more about the Aria Diamond basses???

Photos follow.....

[Barklessdog]

Cool bass and a great project. A sunburst would look cool and retro on it.


A 50's color like Sea Foam green would also be cool.

[drbassman]

Very cool Al.  You and I really do have similar tastes.  I've often been temped by the Mosrite clones as a possible project.  I think these basses look cool in sunburst or something Fenderish from the 60s.  Seafoam is good and I particularly like Vintage white and Cardinal Red.

Keep us posted!

[Chris P.]

Check the EB0 Jr. thread for pick ups!

Nice bass!

[Pilgrim]

Dang - those Eastwood P90 bass pickups in that thread look like really good candidates!  The T-bird pickups are also rather intriguing - they'd give a chromey look to a Hi-Flyer that would be really unusual.

I even have a pair of early 70's Lyle bass pickups sitting on my bench, but I'm not sure whether they'll fit either....yet.  They might even sit too high for a solid-body, since they were made for a hollowbody.

. 

These have been sitting on my bench for a couple of years - I'd need new trim rings but at least I have the originals (heavily painted) to serve as templates.  I have a single-pickup Lyle hollowbody sitting that's waiting for a pickup, but I have a Gretsch pickup I've been too lazy to install so far.



But I'll need to wait for the Aria to arrive so that I can measure the cavities.  I'm really not eager to enlarge them unless I have to.

[drbassman]

Those white pups could fit if you do a rout for them.

[Dave W]

Michael Wright wrote an extensive article on Aria for Vintage Guitar magazine in the 90s. IIRC it was in several parts. Unfortunately there's no index and I have stacks of back issues but I'll look in the next few days.

[godofthunder]

 LOL I have been looking for a Hi-flyer to round out my "early years" bass collection. I had a black one back around '73 or so. I paid 30 bucks for it and rode it home on my bike.......................with no case. LOL. Great little bass, they look cool in black or white. Cool project.

[Dave W]

Okay, I was lucky and found the articles right away. from Nov. and Dec. 1996. What you have is in the Nov. 1996 issue.

It looks like what you have is an Aria Diamond 1720 bass . It appears to be an early one. In 1966 Mr. Arai introduced electrics made by him in existing factories he had bought. The earliest ones can be found under the Arai Diamond or Aria Diamond names, from the same time period. The 1720 was introduced in 1968. The Diamond line was around in the catalogs as late as 1974 but by 1970 they don't seem to have the Diamond name on the headstock. So my guess is 1968-69.

Wright mentions that the Strat copies of 1968 had solid maple bodies.He doesn't mention the body wood in the paragraph on the Mosrite guitar and bass copies, but if what you bought turns out to be close grained, it could very well be a maple species.

This is the same bass later imported by Merson under the Univox Hi-Flyer name.

[sniper]

. 

These have been sitting on my bench for a couple of years - I'd need new trim rings but at least I have the originals (heavily painted) to serve as templates.  I have a single-pickup Lyle hollowbody sitting that's waiting for a pickup, but I have a Gretsch pickup I've been too lazy to install so far.

those almost look like DeArmond Turbojet (sp?) pickups

http://www.curtisnovak.com/pickups/repairs/TurboJet-Bass/

[Pilgrim]

It looks like what you have is an Aria Diamond 1720 bass . It appears to be an early one. In 1966 Mr. Arai introduced electrics made by him in existing factories he had bought. The earliest ones can be found under the Arai Diamond or Aria Diamond names, from the same time period. The 1720 was introduced in 1968. The Diamond line was around in the catalogs as late as 1974 but by 1970 they don't seem to have the Diamond name on the headstock. So my guess is 1968-69.

Wright mentions that the Strat copies of 1968 had solid maple bodies.He doesn't mention the body wood in the paragraph on the Mosrite guitar and bass copies, but if what you bought turns out to be close grained, it could very well be a maple species.

This is the same bass later imported by Merson under the Univox Hi-Flyer name.

Thanks Dave, this is really interesting, and I'm grateful for the model ID. Given the Matsumoku connection, it's not hard to believe that the line might have been converted from Aria to Univox. I did some surfing and with your ID, I found this page with pictures of the bass and the companion guitar: http://www.matsumoku.org/models/aria/solid/mos/17xx.html

This web page shows the production dates from 1968-71. Both bass and guitar were available in Sunburst, Black & White...and it appears that the original pickups would have been black-face with black trim rings. 

I love knowing this kind of stuff.

those almost look like DeArmond Turbojet (sp?) pickups

http://www.curtisnovak.com/pickups/repairs/TurboJet-Bass/

Exactly right!  I've looked at those DeArmond PUs at the Angela website.  I learned more about them from the Novak site.  I wonder if there's a DeArmond/Mastumoku connection?  From watching numerous Ebay auctions and doing a bit of digging, I've observed that the same pickups were used in Lyle, Univox and Epiphone hollowbodies from that same 70's time period - which makes sense, as all built in the same factory.  I've clearly seen the same pickups in Univox, Lyle and Epi guitars and in basses from those lines.

[Chris P.]

Those great threads with lots of info is why I am here at the Outpost!

[Dave W]

There was no ownership connection between DeArmond/Rowe and Japanese manufactuers. They sold OEM pickups to many different manufacturers in the US, Europe and Japan over the years (for example, the Fender Coronado and Harmony H22 had DeArmonds). They also were the first company to offer an aftermarket pickup, back in the 1930s. Guild eventually bought the company and stopped selling the pickups separately. After Fender bought Guild they revived the name.

On a different note, there were never any DeArmond guitars until after Fender bought Guild and decided to use the name on a Korean import line with Guild styling. When they dropped the line (except for the Ashbory) because of low sales, some people on various forums started trashing Fender for running the guitar line into the ground... as if it was something they inherited from Guild. Ignorance gets multiplied online.

[Pilgrim]

Now that I look again at the Aria photos at: http://www.matsumoku.org/models/aria/solid/mos/17xx.html I'm curious as to what color my bass started.  The Sunburst bass shown in the photo has a white PG, and the one on the bass I have coming appears to be kind of a goldish pearloid (see photos at start of thread).  If there were only three colors available, I'm thinking that would most likely have been on a black bass.

[drbassman]

Maybe the neck pocket will tell.