Stratocaster, everything shared so far is of great value. Now, I'm going to make the bold assumption that the electric guitar you own is in fact a Stratocaster.

I will say that in addition to being one of the most versatile guitars ever designed, it is also one of the easiest to screw up from an intonation standpoint - this is down to so many different design changes introduced over the years in the strat. Different bridge designs and tremelo functions, tuning machines, saddles, neck adjustments, etc.

Do you know another Strat player in your town that has a dedicated guitar technician? If so, go there first.

My strat was an early 2000's Made in Mexico Fat Strat. I could never get the tremelo to float properly without screwing up intonation - but I also didn't want to spend countless dollars getting a technician to constantly be adjusting it, so about 6 months into ownership, I made the decision to put all 5 springs on the tremelo mechanism and essentially turn it into a hard-tail. The whammy bar stayed in the case the rest of the time I owned it. I now have an Epiphone Nighthawk Custom Reissue, with same scale length, true hard-tail string through body bridge, set neck, and very strat-like tone when the humbuckers are tapped, but with sustain for days compared to my strat. I really don't miss the strat whatsoever as a result. A 'real' strat player that employs whammy bar would be quite frustrated with my Nighthawk.

There's countless options for trying to get a usable/stable tremelo on the strat; from locking tuners on one end of the string, to roller nuts, to roller saddles to elimination of screw-plate friction, to all kinds of 'tone blocks'.

The existence of these myriad devices can be taken as evidence of the frustration of strat players with this needed, yet mind-boggling combinations of adjustments that can be made. It's also probably evidence of our desire to constantly want to adjust and improve.

Here in Colorado Springs, there's a company that makes an interesting bolt-in tremelo system which is quite popular, the Super-V system. https://www.super-vee.com/

Pretty interesting technology in this system, and supposedly it does not require any destructive modifications to the guitar. https://www.super-vee.com/technology.html

Anyways, I wish you the best on your quest.

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