Now DONE : fretless 7-string baritone Sustainiac Project !

[Flurko]

After a lot of headaches with the Sustainiac, it's in there, I still have to fiddle with the wiring to keep the levels sensible and also fit everything in the cavity properly, but it sustains and is glorious !





Those pot holes left behind are now prime real estate for a cool sticker...

[Flurko]

I know this isn't a guitar very relevant to this forum, but I thought a weird thing like this would gather more interest

I've had some more time to adjust everything, it sings properly, I can now do fake Robert Fripp-style leads or sound like a weird flute. It's more easy to sustain the wound strings instantly, but with careful muting it's fantastic.

With a proper sticker from an independent type foundry and a matching Couch strap, because I'm still supposed to be a graphic designer :





I've made a basic Instagram demo, I should shoot another one when I have more flight hours on this thing.

Now to buy the tools needed to shape and defret the spare neck I got for this !

[Flurko]

I will write more details later, but here where thid project is at :





You can guess what I did and what's still wrong with it

[Flurko]

So, what do we have here :

The neck has been replaced with an ebay-specials baritone neck, which I've defretted, filled the slots with thin plastic sheet (worked a charm) and coated with super glue. The fretboard feels a bit bumpy, I think I need to get a matching radius block (and find the radius first), and alternate new coats of CA glue and sanding to get it glass-smooth. This will allow me to lower the action, because now it's very high on the high notes, not that hard to play but not optimal.

The bridge is a plastic repro of some kind of cheap euro acoustic bridge, made for tailpiece -equipped instruments. I found a 7-string tailpiece that does exactly what is needed.

I like the look and the functionality of this bridge, the neck will need to be shimmed if I want to lower the action at some point.

I really love the sound of the fretless for quick arpeggios, combined with the flatwound strings it has a unsustained thunk sorta reminiscent of west African music. With the Sustainiac the slides between notes sound very smooth and fluid, even more woodwind-like. The bridge pickup needs to get closer to the strings, but I don't have screws long enough that fit in the mounting tabs, direct-mount pickups aren't usually supposed to go that high.

One last close -up shot to end this rant :



The copper tape under the bridge is there to ground the strings via the metal tailpiece, it didn't work that well because the wire poked through the tape, I used a Danish coin to press it against the tape, I could screw it in place thanks to the hole in the coin !

[Shadoweclipse13]

This is cool as hell! I always liked the Ibanez GAX series. My oldest friend had one as his first guitar, and I'm in the process of rebuilding it for him (inexpensive humbucker-sized P-90s, and I'm changing the pots to a master volume and tone lead circuit, with a JM-style rhythm circuit using the other 2 holes). I LOVE the Sustainiac setup too!!

[Flurko]

It's done !

After a few coats of superglue followed by sanding, the fingerboard is now as smooth as it can be. There's a few streaks and sanding marks in the finish but I'm satisfied enough to call it done.
I've also added a battery hatch to the back, this way the control cavity is less crowded and it's easier to swap the 9V battery. The less said about my routing job the better though, a few drill bits and a dull chisel only get you so far.. Thankfully it's all covered !

I'm a bit bummed because two screw heads broke when I tightened them, one on the back of the B-string tuner, which seems to work ok without it, and more worryingly I also managed to break the one holding the bass side or the tailpiece, I don't get how I managed this on a brand new part, only with a normal screwdriver... It holds up for now but I'm disappointed.

Now the photos :