Ripthorn

Hi All, several years ago I got really interested in the DIY sustainer idea and read a lot of Pete's work and others. Well, fast forward to about 6 months ago and I decided I was going to unravel the mysteries of the commercial units. I bought an original Sustainiac Stealth unit and reverse engineered both the circuit and the driver so that this information can be freely available to the DIY community. I have posted full details on my hobby site, but a quick recap is as follows: - Circuit contains a buffer, AGC, attenuverter, and gain stage prior to a discrete class D amplifier - Driver is two coils RWRP with a total impedance of 2 Ohms. Bobbin cores are made from transformer core laminate and the slanted pole topper pieces are actually used to reduce the size of the magnetic gap between the two bobbins so that middle strings sustain well. You can find full details here: https://scientificguitarist.wixsite.com/home/sustainer-reverse-engineering I have also developed my own circuit based on the original that uses a modern class D chip and reduces the number of opamp stages to reduce power consumption. You can find that circuit here: https://scientificguitarist.wixsite.com/home/fermata-sustainer Hopefully this helps someone, as this place seems to be the forum repository for all sustainer knowledge. I've got two more circuits in the works: one totally stripped down to just the bare essentials for good operation using common parts and one that adds more features and allows for the driver to be used as a neck pickup. Those will be coming in time and will also be posted to my page. Enjoy!

This is my Photon prototype build. I am hobby builder, working out of my garage. I have built about 18 guitars over the last 16 years This one is a design that was inspired by the thought of something in motion and by the bevels and thinness of the SG. Because of what I wanted it to be, there are very few off the shelf parts here: the switch, pots, jack, and strap locks are the only retail parts. I designed and machined the bridge, tuners, knobs, truss rod, inlays, pickup covers and I wound the pickups as well. Some vital specs: - Zebrawood top on Sapele, 1 1/4" total thickness, grain matched cavity cover with rare earth magnets - Vertical grain Doug fir neck - Bloodwood fretboard, 24.5625-26" scale lengths - Magnetic truss rod cover - Firebird style humbuckers with A5 magnets inside of sapele/bloodwood covers - All aluminum hardware designed and machined by myself in my garage - Wave/particle duality inlays featuring photoluminescent powder inside of aluminum tubing - Separate volume controls and master 2-band passive EQ with onboard preamp - Finished with 2k gloss

So many great guitars last month, I'll give this a whirl again this month: This is my Photon prototype build. I am hobby builder, working out of my garage. I have built about 18 guitars over the last 16 years This one is a design that was inspired by the thought of something in motion and by the bevels and thinness of the SG. Because of what I wanted it to be, there are very few off the shelf parts here: the switch, pots, jack, and strap locks are the only retail parts. I designed and machined the bridge, tuners, knobs, truss rod, inlays, pickup covers and I wound the pickups as well. Some vital specs: - Zebrawood top on Sapele, 1 1/4" total thickness, grain matched cavity cover with rare earth magnets - Vertical grain Doug fir neck - Bloodwood fretboard, 24.5625-26" scale lengths - Magnetic truss rod cover - Firebird style humbuckers with A5 magnets inside of sapele/bloodwood covers - All aluminum hardware designed and machined by myself in my garage - Wave/particle duality inlays featuring photoluminescent powder inside of aluminum tubing - Separate volume controls and master 2-band passive EQ with onboard preamp - Finished with 2k gloss

This is my Photon prototype build. I am hobby builder, working out of my garage. I have built about 18 guitars over the last 16 years This one is a design that was inspired by the thought of something in motion and by the bevels and thinness of the SG. Because of what I wanted it to be, there are very few off the shelf parts here: the switch, pots, jack, and strap locks are the only retail parts. I designed and machined the bridge, tuners, knobs, truss rod, inlays, pickup covers and I wound the pickups as well. Some vital specs: - Zebrawood top on Sapele, 1 1/4" total thickness, grain matched cavity cover with rare earth magnets - Vertical grain Doug fir neck - Bloodwood fretboard, 24.5625-26" scale lengths - Magnetic truss rod cover - Firebird style humbuckers with A5 magnets inside of sapele/bloodwood covers - All aluminum hardware designed and machined by myself in my garage - Wave/particle duality inlays featuring photoluminescent powder inside of aluminum tubing - Separate volume controls and master 2-band passive EQ with onboard preamp - Finished with 2k gloss

I actually have a piece in my stash right now that does the exact same thing. At first I thought that it looked like purpleheart, but not brownish as I expected. I cut some up to make an infill plane, and the cut ends were brown. Some of the offcut scrap that got left out turned purple. I thought it was backwards. However, I think what is really happening is that there are more than one species of tree called purpleheart, much like there are more than one kinds of maple, walnut, etc. This purpleheart I have does not splinter quite like other purpleheart I have used (and that stuff was purple fresh and brown later). So I think it is likely just that there are two species that both have purple heartwood, but that behave differently. Then again, that's only a guess, but I have used purpleheart where the color shift goes both ways.

If you overlap the joints like what is done with bowling alleys and the like, you can do it, but I don't know how it would work with stability or longevity.

If the block is a good fit, regular old epoxy is a great choice. If it is not a good fit, the best option is to cut a block that is. After that, and if it is to be an opaque finish, Timbermate is a great wood filler that does not have the same issues that many other fillers have as far as shrinking, cracking, staining, etc.

It is best to have parts on hand, especially for your first builds. Additionally, I would say to maybe try something other than spalted maple first. Spalt is a fungus that attacks the wood, leaving it very soft (often called punky) which in turn makes it much more difficult to work with than other woods. You can try it, but it carries a higher risk of ruining a nice looking piece.

Perry, beautiful instrument. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) I only build for myself. Otherwise, I would do exactly as you say.

Whatever you're putting it on, I want to see it when you're done. I would love to use some snakewood, but I would like to have a positive bank account balance afterwards, too. Those two seem nearly exclusive

There are a couple of ways of doing it. First, it should be done without any risk of it coming in contact with finish, so any sealer on the top will need to come off. Bleaching the whole top will give you the best uniform look. There are different kinds of bleach. Common household bleach is unlikely to do anything more than a very subtle lightening. Some of the woodworking stores sell oxalic acid, which is okay for mineral stains and the like, but if you are wanting a very light color, the best thing to do is a sodium hydroxide (lye) and peroxide treatment. You can use the heavy duty drain cleaners from the BORG for the lye (make sure they have the right active ingredient) and then pool clarifier for the peroxide (much stronger than you can get at the drug store). I don't remember the ratios off hand, but you mix the drain cleaner with distilled water and brush it on. Let it sit for a while. Then, brush on the peroxide. It may take a couple applications, depending in wood color, desired lightness, and chemical strength. Test this all on scrap, wear gloves and a respirator, and observe all other safety precautions, as the chemicals can be pretty nasty.

You can buy the blue two way rods all over the world, as they usually ship from china. Alternatively, there is PRS's way of making two way rods, which I want to try, but it will require a brazing setup, I think. They are a very elegant solution, low mass, and easy to make at home if you have a way to braze.

A volume pot is just a voltage divider, circuits of which are all over the net. What you are changing when you turn the pot is the value of the two resistors in a voltage divider. The pot on 10 means it goes through a zero series resistance, but there is still a large parallel resistance (the pot value) parallel to your output (amp's input). Because the pot value is not infinity and the amp's input impedance is not zero, the value of the pot will affect the signal to some degree. The only way the resistance is completely bypassed is by using a no-load pot, which actually just has a little switch that takes the pot completely out of the circuit and jumps the signal straight to the output.

I recently did a gold top Les Paul and what I found is that by scraping the binding level before color coats, I ended up chipping the finish and is the one thing about the build that I kick myself about. If I were to do it again, I would leave the binding a little higher than the body, spray color, then some clear (a coat or two), then scrape back and shoot more clear. Then again, I have never tried it so I have no idea if it would work well or not.

That all depends on what you are trying to build. If you want strat or tele templates, Ron Kirn's are really great. If you want Les Paul templates, Bartlett templates are great. Of course, not all templates will come with a neck template, mostly because a neck (aside from the headstock) requires creating two straight lines and the heel profile. I don't know of a set with neck templates that will be as accurate as you are wanting.