Infinity Sustainer Project

Well the good thing about that is that you can fit whatever pickguard you want. 

You've done a great job with that mod, just to clarify one issue you raised, yes American Fender parts are different to Mexican and Japanese Fender parts and Squier parts, you're lucky that all you had to do is re drill a few holes.  

Ah locking tuners are nice, but I'm not so sure whether that's a particularly good use of money on something like a Squier. My current axe, a Brian Moore Guitars I12000 series comes with a knife edge based 2 point trem (like the ones you see on Fender Standard and Fender Deluxe Strats for example), which is a hell of lot of smoother than the old style 6 screw trem like that on your squier. I once had a strat copy with a 6 screw trem, no matter how much pencil lead lubrication and careful string winding at the tuners I did, I couldn't get it to stay in tune for more than 30 seconds of whammy bar abuse . But back to the main point, my  I12000 comes with Sperzel locking tuners, a Graphtec nut and my trem could survive well over 20-30 minutes of pretty heavy trem arm abuse before needing any tuning, and even then compared to my strat copy which went out of tune several semi tones, the I1 would only need a half semi tone at most fine tuning. But inevitably, the weakest link in my trem system is the steel bridge saddles, which is where the point of friction really occurs most (given that a locking tuner+graphtec nut is pretty much as good as a locking nut). I've heard many people say even if they upgrade from non locking to locking tuners to locking devices, when they use the trem arm they barely get anymore tuning stability, because of binding at the nut and bridge saddles. So bear in mind, locking tuners alone won't make much difference to a 6 point screw trem, unless you get Graphtec saddles and a nut, which will add a bit to the cost as well.

Ahhh. My personal experience with the Sustaniac is that the low E, A and D swelled into sustain better than the unwound strings, but I guess that might vary ever so slightly from individual experiences and guitars and other factors I may or may not be aware of. Ah well now that it works, you have only one choice left: to have some supreme fun mucking around with the sustainer. And the seriously good fun starts when you get one of those babies into a locking trem equipped guitar, absolute sonic mayhem . Not sure if your into that style of guitar, but if you ever get the chance to try out a Jackson DK2S or something similar, don't pass up the offer.

When you say, "Some strings and  notes sustain better than others" I'm not sure what you mean entirely by that. As in some strings/notes swell into sustain better, or that the actual sustain per se eventually cuts off on some notes entirely after a period of time?

Edited by HughesJB4 - May 31 2008 at 08:04

I've been away on business for most of the month, so no chance to work on it. Unfortunately before I left I removed the pickguard assembly from the guitar so I could install the electronics, when I returned I discovered I'd left it in direct sunlight and it had warped to buggery - I ordered a replacement from Axesrus.com and there isn't a single hole on the damn thing that matches the original - which is annoying because I've already routed holes for the extra controls and lined the cavity with copper shielding.

Maybe I missed it in the previous posts but there is a similar idea at:

Edited by darren - April 12 2008 at 02:14

How's the project going so far?

Edited by HughesJB4 - April 04 2008 at 04:55

Strange that nobody yet pointed out this particular point I'm about to make. It sounds like you have read a lot about the sustainer, but it doesn't sound like you actually used one before (Correct me if I'm wrong please). There is a reason why it goes in the neck pickup, and not the middle or bridge.