curtisa

Unfortunately you're coming up against the main drawbacks the DIY sustainer project always presented - poor string/note selectivity, simplistic circuit design, inconsistent results. I, and others here, did build a sustainer using the original circuit and coil design which worked decently over about 2/3 of the neck, but it was far from perfect. I'm not aware of any useful mods to the original design that would improve things, but here a few ideas to play with: Try swapping the wires on the LM386 output to the driver around. Perhaps your driver is trying to operate in harmonic mode (phase reversed)? Use a humbucker bridge pickup instead of a single coil. Verify you are getting strong drive signal from the LM386 by temporarily substituting a speaker for the driver coil. Potting the driver coil was supposed to help things by preventing movement in the coil windings. Some people painted the windings in thin coats of varnish or epoxy. A total redesign of the driver circuit was really in order during the life of the project, but no lasting effort was put into it. Really, the persistence of using the LM386 driver chip needs to be put to rest, as does the use of the 1-transistor Fetzer/Ruby preamp in front of it. As platforms for getting something out of the driver for testing purposes, they were fine. But as lasting, well-designed circuits with consistent, predictable behaviour they are completely inadequate for the task. The LM386 should really be substituted with something more efficient - a class-D switching amp would be ideal. Some form of automatic gain control (compression, limiting) should be incorporated into the preamp to regulate the amount of drive being applied to the coil and balance out the response of each note, use of low-power consumption componentry, tailoring the frequency response of the whole circuit etc etc. If you look through the patents, these were all known about many years ago, long before the DIY sustainer really got going. Joel de Guzman (username @Cycfi) was doing some interesting development of the sustainer for a while. He has a website where he discusses his Infinty project in the blog section here. It appears he's long-since ditched the LM386 and gone for digital signal control and class-D drivers. Not exactly DIY-friendly, but certainly taking the sustainer development in the right direction.

You can never have too much light. I find the lamp on the articulated arm that appears in a few of those pics to be indispensible for getting a bit of light right where I need it and holding it steady.

They're life savers, to be sure. The one in those shots got partially "eaten" by my router when I foolishly put the router down on top of it while it was spinning down (not while I was wearing it). It's now got a massive shredded hole in the centre of it to remind me to never do anything stupid like that again.

Before performing the crowning I re-paint the fret tops with the permanent marker. Some people don't bother with this step, but I find it helps makes things a bit easier to see as I'm going. Once again, the aim of the game is to only use the crowning file to remove as little material as possible. I'm aiming to file so that there is just a weeny bit of a red permanent marker line remaining on the fret top, indicating that I've only reshaped the sides without lowering the height of each fret. I also wear one of those headband torches, so I can put as much light onto this process as possible: All 24 done: Fret edges get bevelled now. I do this early as there is a risk that I'll slip and scuff up the fret top. Doing the edging early means that I can polish out any slip-ups with the various sanding grits. Doing it later means that any slip-ups will necessitate going through the polishing process all over: Then on to polishing. Work my way up through the grits from 600 to 2000, then a final buff with the Dremel before wiping any excess scuzz off with a cloth: Useful tip: have the neck secured in some way so you don't have to touch it while you're polishing the frets. It tends to be messy work, and any crap on your hands can easily transfer to that pristine timber. Wash yer hands before you handle the neck again: Useful tip: remember the earlier post where I wrapped the edges of the masking tape up with a long strip on either side of the neck? Here's where it comes in handy - for removing all the small strips of tape in one piece: Before/after shot. No more popping-uppy frets or sticky-outy edges:

Using the levelling beam as a template, cut some 400grit paper into long strips. The paper won't last long working against nickel, so may as well cut the full sheet of paper up. A quick squirt of spray adhesive and we're ready to go: Neck goes back into the cradle/T-shirt combo and the beam gets run over the frets a few times. The aim of the game is to ensure that the red permanent marker gets rubbed off each fret by the least amount possible: Change the paper frequently. This is after about a dozen or so strokes. The abrasive is pretty much all gone now: After four paper changes all the fret tops have been touched at least once:

Resuming proceedings on the next day, the caul comes off and masking tape goes on. Each strip gets butted hard up against each fret. The last thing I want is the freboard getting damaged in any way while I'm leveling and crowning: Eventually as the gaps between frets get narrower, a single strip of masking tape becomes too wide to fit, so we cut the overhang off with a scalpel fitted with a fresh blade. Useful tip: as the gaps get narrower further up the neck, use the masking tape offcut on the highest frets and work your way from both ends of the neck: Useful tip: Can't remember where I stole this from originally, but once all the fret gaps are taped up, trim off the overhang at the sides to about 10mm and wrap the edges along the full length of the neck with a strip of masking tape (reason behind this will become apparent later on): One final check of straightness and tweak the truss rod if required to get the neck as straight as possible before levelling: Grab a permanent marker and commence "painting" the tops of the frets. Use a contrasting colour that's easy to see. Red or blue works well. I find black a bit difficult to see under certain lights. The painted fret tops makes it easier to see how the levelling is going:

Now that the inlays and neck profile have been sorted it's time to move on to the refretting. Break out the DIY fretbender doodad and put a few lengths of jumbo fretwire through, and trim off 24 ready for pressing. Useful tip: measure and cut starting from the 24th fret and work your way back to the 1st. That way, if you mess up the measurement of one of the upper frets and accidentally cut it too short, you can reuse it on a shorter fret lower down the neck instead of throwing it away: Undercutting the tangs on the DIY tang cutter, Just a set of cheap nibblers with a groove cut into the baseplate to accept the edge of the fretwire: Before we go any further, just need to quickly run the fretsaw through each of the existing slots to clear out any residual gunk and allow sufficent depth for each fret tang to seat fully: Then it's off to the fret press to drive them all in. The neck is resting in a cradle lined with an old T-shirt to prevent marring up the back of the neck (yet another DIY creation): Once done, a few drops of superglue are wicked into the end of each slot from both sides and the 16" radius beam gets reused as a clamping caul. Let it set overnight before proceeding further:

Assuming you're not looking at super-skinny Wizard necks, I don't see why a guitar neck wouldn't be strong enough. The'yre made using the same materials and techniques. There will be other chalenges you'll need to deal with that will matter more - how to fit bass strings to a guitar bridge and tuners, re-cutting the nut slots to fit the thicker strings, dealing with the tone that may result from using bass strings over a very short scale length,

3rd pic does it for me, although whatever feels most comfortable/logical to the player is ultimately what should win out.

Yes, or at least don't crank the master volume so much that you end up overdriving the output section for long periods of time. A solid state output section when run into clipping turns your lovely guitar signal into massive square waves, which just heats up the speaker voice coils and runs the risk of burning them out. The soft clipping behaviour of a tube power section doesn't exhibit this tendency, and as a consequence it's quite safe to run a 15W tube amp full tilt into a 250W cab. Bottom line - don't go silly with your master volume and you'll be fine. If you need more oomph, mike your amp up through the PA. The Loop Station needs to be in the effects loop of the amp, not between the amp and speakers. Putting the RC-300 on the amp's output will result in much smoke and the opportunity to buy yourself a new Loop Station.

If a limited budget is something you have to work woth, what about checking out the second hand market? I'm not familiar with those bands, but perhaps a google search may reveal what gear they use, and then see if anything is being sold in your area that fits the bill? How about a modelling amp? Or (heaven forbid) a laptop with a bunch of free software sims feeding a poweramp to drive the cab? Not if you don't want to. There's nothing that says Marshall amps must be coupled with Marshall cabs. Mix and match to your hearts content. 100W upwards should be more than ample. There's actually a case for not going less than the rating of the cabinet if the amp you use has a solid state power section, due to the way the amp clips when overdriven.

Aye. Job's a good 'un. Guitar of the Month.

If it were me I'd position them in the middle of the truss rod's length. Pretty much as you have them in the photo.

Good job that man.

Not to the best of my knowledge. There's been some discussion here and there, but development of the DIY sustainer never really evolved past the loose tutorials and schematics that you've likely already found. I can think of better power amp and preamp topologies than the LM386 and Fetzer-Ruby solutions that get mentioned a lot, but they're not exactly user-friendly, easy-to-build solutions. For many weekend DIY-ers, it's hard to justify putting mountains of effort into beating Fernandes and Sustainiac at their own game.. Here's a thread that may offer some insights into future avenues to explore if an improved sustainer is something you want to investigate:

What diagram are you referencing against? Pins 2 and 3 are interchangeable, insofar as the output will be polarity-reversed if they are swapped. This is the same as toggling the sustainer between normal and harmonic modes by flipping the polarity of the driver leads at the output. There were a lot of other underlying reasons why so many people struggled to get the DIY sustainer working, not the least because it was never a particularly reliable design to start with.

One thing you may have to watch out for if you go ahead with this is that the fine tuners appear to raise the strings quite high off the guitar body. This could have an impact on the amount of downforce that each string can exert on the bridge as they pass over each saddle. At best it will change the tone, as less pressure on the bridge translates to less transfer of the strings' vibration energy onto the body. Worst case it may make the strings easy to dislodge from each saddle as the downforce isn't sufficient to retain the string on the saddle, An overly vigorous strum may make the strings roll right off the saddles.

There was one fret which left a bit of a skid mark on the treble side, but any evidence has since been obliterated with the board being re-radiused. Back on to the neck, the heel has been reshaped to eliminate the beefy transition and the overall profile tidied up to remove any unevenness. There were a couple of lumps at various points that I've managed to level out, and narrowing down the sides has improved the overall slenderness of the neck without sacrificing thickness: The difference in heel transition is best illustrated here, with these obligatory before and after shots: And the black epoxy has also been scraped level and the logo finalised, ready to be re-sealed under clear.:

The worlds' slowest infinity-mirror effect.

Needs must. And I must have a need to make room for new projects. I figure if I can learn a few new skills along the way, it has to be a win. The wife may disagree, though.

After leveling with the radius beam at 120 grit, we're left with this; Big improvement on what used to be there (at least in my very humble, vanishingly-tiny and insignificant opinion). Before I get too stuck into finishing the radius on the board by sanding through the grits I'll head back to the CNC and quickly cut a new logo for the headstock. Another rapid fire jig required to hold the neck in place - just a couple of threaded inserts underneath two of the tuner holes in a piece of MDF with big bolts passing through. A little piece of masking tape with a pencil mark to indicate where I want the logo to begin: Note the missing 3rd string tuner washer. I nearly lost it on the workshop floor when it fell off while putting the jig together, and I didn't notice it until I took this photo. Luckily managed to find it. The rest of the washers were removed shortly afterwards and bagged up in a ziplock bag for safekeeping. Then off to mix up some black-tinted epoxy and make a mess. This gets scraped level once the epoxy sets leaving behind the black infilled logo in the maple. Usually takes two applications to fill any remaining pin holes in the epoxy that usually form as air bubbles:

Thanks Andy, although it's worth noting that the voting was as close as you can get between the entrants. Very stiff competition this month.

Pretty sure I just broke the internet.

Damn, I think I've just entered a space-time continuum infinite vortex. I'm viewing your thread on Project Guitar using my Dell Latitude, where you are looking at your thread on Project Guitar using your Dell Latitude....