# Hellraiser über-mod project



## JohnIce (Mar 9, 2011)

So as some of you have noticed, I'm very happy with the specs and tone of my latest build (thread found here: http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/se...836-ngd-home-built-horizon-7-hss-content.html). However, it was my first attempt and some mistakes were made, causing a little too high action, lack of sustain on higher frets, and not the greatest tuning stability. Added to that, the 25" scale I was left with from using Warmoth isn't optimal for drop A tuning.

My C-7 Hellraiser is quite the opposite... I don't like the specs at all, but I like the playability and it's been rock solid on every performance I've done with it. But it lacks a trem.

So today I ordered a C-7 Hellraiser FR  My plan is to yank the Lollar singles and Dimarzio PAF7 out of my home build, re-route the Hellraiser and refinish it in a Silverburst finish, basically turn it into a replica of my home build. Here's a mockup:







I also plan to dye the fretboard black, and use only one volume control. The other two knobs will be disconnected and reserved for use with a future piezo system (switch and volume).

Question: I like the idea of using a 3-way switch, as I need to do quick switches to the middle pickup live. Is it possible to use some kind of push/pull pot to be able to get the in-between pickup positions, without using a 5-way switch?


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## drenzium (Mar 9, 2011)

EDIT: Assholes.


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## JohnIce (Mar 9, 2011)

drenzium said:


> The Hellraisers already have push pull pots installed for use with the tappable EMGs.
> 
> I personally think you're destroying a perfectly good guitar with all of these mods. It's not exactly a beat around guitar that you're having fun with, it's actually a pretty decent instrument.
> 
> If you want particular things out of a guitar, go custom or something bro.



Don't see why... get a custom Schecter for $4000, or buy one for $1000 that is close enough and do some modding to it. If I was dead-set on selling it again, I could pretty easily redo the mods and re-paint it black. But I don't see myself doing that, as I'm very familiar with the guitar and the specs and it's what I'd use live. I'm at the point where I know what I want from a guitar, so damaging resale value is irrelevant to me. Even if my band would somehow completely change styles, I'd still need this guitar to play the old songs 

About the pots, yes they are used to split the EMG's, but I'm not looking for splits and I'm not keeping the EMG's. Actually I'll have to ditch the pots anyhow cause I'm switching to passive pickups.


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## scherzo1928 (Mar 9, 2011)

Sounds like a cool project. would you be keeping the binding like on the mockup?

About the switching, have you seen the 6 way switch Darren is using in one of his builds? I think you could find it useful. 

Having a 2nd switch just for some pickup combinations could be an option, but absolutely overkill and overall not cool if you will also have one for the piezo.



drenzium said:


> The Hellraisers already have push pull pots installed for use with the tappable EMGs.
> 
> I personally think you're destroying a perfectly good guitar with all of these mods. It's not exactly a beat around guitar that you're having fun with, it's actually a pretty decent instrument.
> 
> If you want particular things out of a guitar, go custom or something bro.


 
a) those are 25k pots, which are useless for passives. Besides, he wants them for pickup switching, not for coiltapping his already singlecoil pickups.

b) how is he destroying it? He is turning a guitar into exactly what he wants from a guitar, without spending the money that a custom shop guitar would cost him.

bro.


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## JohnIce (Mar 9, 2011)

scherzo1928 said:


> Sounds like a cool project. would you be keeping the binding like on the mockup?
> 
> About the switching, have you seen the 6 way switch Darren is using in one of his builds? I think you could find it useful.
> 
> ...



Cheers mate! I'll see about the binding, it's hard to tell from pictures but it seems like it'll work well with a Silverburst. In that case, I plan to buy some pearloid-lookalike vinyl to cut the dragon out of, would be tacky but that's how I like it 

Now that you mention it I've heard of the 6-way switch, will have to check it out. Is that the one that's laid out like the gear stick on a car?

The extra pickup positions aren't absolutely necessary, but I do like to cram as much versatility as I can into my live guitars cause I'm not a fan of switching guitars during the show.

And yeah, modding a relatively inexpensive guitar is my best bet at the moment. And I've had $3000 guitars that didn't necessarily play better than my Schecter, so I'm pretty confident in this


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## yingmin (Mar 9, 2011)

Something I've thought about doing with my Steinberger (HSH) is switching to a 3-way selector for just the bridge and neck, and having a push/push pot to add in the middle pickup when I want it. Haven't entirely convinced myself to go for it yet, as the Steinberger isn't my main guitar and it really isn't a pressing concern, but it's something you might want to think about.


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## JohnIce (Mar 9, 2011)

yingmin said:


> Something I've thought about doing with my Steinberger (HSH) is switching to a 3-way selector for just the bridge and neck, and having a push/push pot to add in the middle pickup when I want it. Haven't entirely convinced myself to go for it yet, as the Steinberger isn't my main guitar and it really isn't a pressing concern, but it's something you might want to think about.



Well, the odd thing is that I use the middle pickup on it's own quite heavily... I'd say a good 50% of my rhythm playing is done on the middle pickup. That's also the reason why I'd like a 3-way switch over a 5-way, beacuse it's easier to access the middle position when you don't have to skip positions 2 and 4.


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## yingmin (Mar 9, 2011)

Fair enough. I've had two-humbucker guitars for most of the time I've been playing guitar, so I'm not really that attached to my middle pickup, although I have found some uses for it.


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## JohnIce (Mar 9, 2011)

yingmin said:


> Fair enough. I've had two-humbucker guitars for most of the time I've been playing guitar, so I'm not really that attached to my middle pickup, although I have found some uses for it.



Yeah, I didn't really use it until about two years ago when I put together my Warmoth sixer, and really took the time to listen to all the pickup positions to make sure I liked the pickups and that the wiring was right. I was pretty blown away by the middle singlecoil and how great string separation and punch it had, which is awesome for extended chords on a gain channel.

As an example, this song is all the middle singlecoil (except for the solo), and I haven't found that tone anywhere else. It's clear like a bridge singlecoil, but much meatier and richer sounding:


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## vansinn (Mar 9, 2011)

I imagine it'll look really good with that finish; the bindings works well with silverburst, at least on your mockup.

I'd advice you to try out the Lollar bucker and just one single before starting to fill and route; the tonal options just might surprice you (I find middle pups getting in my way, but we're all different).
I also believe the looks will balance quite well this way.

Personally, I'd leave out the dragon and opt for what I think would be a very classy look.
I'm not sure staining the board would look better; the stock color makes it stand out in a nicely contrasting balanced way..

I'd like to see a new mockup like this, if you got the time and inclination


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## JohnIce (Mar 9, 2011)

vansinn said:


> I imagine it'll look really good with that finish; the bindings works well with silverburst, at least on your mockup.
> 
> I'd advice you to try out the Lollar bucker and just one single before starting to fill and route; the tonal options just might surprice you (I find middle pups getting in my way, but we're all different).
> I also believe the looks will balance quite well this way.
> ...



Thanks for posting, and yeah the fretboard isn't urgent, chances are it'll look fine as is. But about the middle pickup, see my above post  It's an integral part of my rhythm tone. And the dragon is not classy, but it's kind of my thing  I haven't done a single Rhinestone gig where I didn't have a dragon on my guitar


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## scherzo1928 (Mar 9, 2011)

JohnIce said:


> Now that you mention it I've heard of the 6-way switch, will have to check it out. Is that the one that's laid out like the gear stick on a car?


 
that's the one. 





STEWMAC.COM : Free-Way Pickup Switch

It could even help later on with the piezo?


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## JohnIce (Mar 9, 2011)

scherzo1928 said:


> that's the one.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Interesting  Would love to try one before drilling into the guitar, but I'll think about it. I was also looking at the StarrSwitch 3+ but according to reviews it's pretty unreliable and it was also a lot bigger and cheaper looking than I expected.


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## b7string (Mar 9, 2011)

This will be cool! I was gonna say something like "but it would be way cooler still if you slapped some piezos in there" but it looks like you are way ahead of me 

I have a C7 aswell, and while its not an rg7321 as far as cheap modibility goes, it leaves a lot to be wished for in some ways, and I think its a great starting point. And like you said, it saves yourself the multi-thousand-dollar price tag of a custom, and you still get a badass guitar.


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## drenzium (Mar 10, 2011)

Go custom doesn't mean go to the schecter custom shop. It means just get a guitar made from somewhere that has the specs you desire.
I don't see the point in buying a guitar that is a certain way and then changing everything about it, THAT'S MY OPINION.
Your reasoning you added for getting this guitar over a custom is actually quite good, i dont see how i could fucking know that originally though.
Actually being neg repped for using the word bro at the end of my sentence, oh my god.
Holy shit, assholes.


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## JohnIce (Mar 10, 2011)

b7string said:


> This will be cool! I was gonna say something like "but it would be way cooler still if you slapped some piezos in there" but it looks like you are way ahead of me
> 
> I have a C7 aswell, and while its not an rg7321 as far as cheap modibility goes, it leaves a lot to be wished for in some ways, and I think its a great starting point. And like you said, it saves yourself the multi-thousand-dollar price tag of a custom, and you still get a badass guitar.



Cheers man! Yeah that's an interesting discussion, people can mod RG's right and left but for some reason it's a touchy subject when it comes to Schecters  I think it might have something to do with the flamed top, binding and set neck, it's probably seems easier to get a good result with just a flat-top black bolt-on guitar, even if the price is the same. That said, if I were planning to keep the flamed top (granted, the black one doesn't have it) then routing and filling like this would look pretty messy.

Normally I'd have no qualms about going custom, or building it myself, but I'm short on time as I've got plenty of gigs booked and we're also entering the studio at the end of this month, so neither custom nor home building is an option right now. To be perfectly honest, even though I enjoyed building my own guitar I don't really have the passion for it nor will to invest in the required tools, so this will be a happy medium. And since I already have the pickups and the paint cans from my last build, this project will cost me nothing aside from the original guitar.



drenzium said:


> Go custom doesn't mean go to the schecter custom shop. It means just get a guitar made from somewhere that has the specs you desire.
> I don't see the point in buying a guitar that is a certain way and then changing everything about it, THAT'S MY OPINION.
> Your reasoning you added for getting this guitar over a custom is actually quite good, i dont see how i could fucking know that originally though.
> Actually being neg repped for using the word bro at the end of my sentence, oh my god.
> Holy shit, assholes.



I won't feed this too much, and I think you're overreacting a bit, but just to be clear I didn't rep you and have no intention to, and I don't expect you to know anything about me other than what I wrote in the OP. It's a discussion forum, not a wiki  But I'm not at all changing _everything_ about this guitar, really just the pickups and finish. It's a quick job that will take an efternoon or two, plus some time for the laquer to cure. If I wanted a different scale length, neck joint, wood selection etc. then I'd agree with you, but really the modding at hand here will look a lot more extensive than it actually is.


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## JohnIce (Mar 10, 2011)

Double-post, but it just hit me that the EMG's left over from the Hellraiser could fit quite nicely in my newly refinished Squier  Two birds with one tone, ha.


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## signalgrey (Mar 10, 2011)

JohnIce said:


> Don't see why... get a custom Schecter for $4000, or buy one for $1000 that is close enough and do some modding to it. If I was dead-set on selling it again, I could pretty easily redo the mods and re-paint it black. But I don't see myself doing that, as I'm very familiar with the guitar and the specs and it's what I'd use live. I'm at the point where I know what I want from a guitar, so damaging resale value is irrelevant to me. Even if my band would somehow completely change styles, I'd still need this guitar to play the old songs
> 
> About the pots, yes they are used to split the EMG's, but I'm not looking for splits and I'm not keeping the EMG's. Actually I'll have to ditch the pots anyhow cause I'm switching to passive pickups.



dude, i LOVE taking a guitar i kinda like....gutting it..and making it exactly what i want. Its totally different than just getting a custom, something is so satisfying about frankensteining a guitar.

http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/2308157-post7.html

that was my mod.

I did something similar with my Burns barricuda and i fucking love it, its my favorite guitar. Go forth! make awesome shit!


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## JohnIce (Mar 10, 2011)

signalgrey said:


> dude, i LOVE taking a guitar i kinda like....gutting it..and making it exactly what i want. Its totally different than just getting a custom, something is so satisfying about frankensteining a guitar.
> 
> http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/2308157-post7.html
> 
> ...



Shit man, that looks schweet! At first I almost jizzed because I thought it was a 7-string P-90, but it's cool anyway  Yeah I have high hopes for this one, there's not really that much that can go wrong as far as playability or sustain goes, as I'm keeping the neck and bridge where they are.


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## scherzo1928 (Mar 10, 2011)

signalgrey said:


> dude, i LOVE taking a guitar i kinda like....gutting it..and making it exactly what i want. Its totally different than just getting a custom, something is so satisfying about frankensteining a guitar.
> 
> http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/2308157-post7.html
> 
> ...


 
holy balls, you look exactly like your avatar! 

and that axe looks great!


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## Murmel (Mar 10, 2011)

drenzium said:


> Go custom doesn't mean go to the schecter custom shop. It means just get a guitar made from somewhere that has the specs you desire.
> I don't see the point in buying a guitar that is a certain way and then changing everything about it, THAT'S MY OPINION.
> Your reasoning you added for getting this guitar over a custom is actually quite good, i dont see how i could fucking know that originally though.
> Actually being neg repped for using the word bro at the end of my sentence, oh my god.
> Holy shit, assholes.


If you took the time to read your own posts you'd see why you get neg-repped. You're pretty much being a douche all the time.

Anyways... Hoppas du får igång detta projekt, John. Skulle vara riktigt intressant  Har verkligen fått upp ögat för silverburst på senare tid. Grymt snyggt.


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## signalgrey (Mar 10, 2011)

JohnIce said:


> Shit man, that looks schweet! At first I almost jizzed because I thought it was a 7-string P-90, but it's cool anyway  Yeah I have high hopes for this one, there's not really that much that can go wrong as far as playability or sustain goes, as I'm keeping the neck and bridge where they are.



im gonna email about SD making a custom one. doubt its gonna happen but that would be fucking AWESOME!



scherzo1928 said:


> holy balls, you look exactly like your avatar!
> 
> and that axe looks great!


hahaha thanks dude!


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## crush_taylor (Mar 10, 2011)

JohnIce said:


> Double-post, but it just hit me that the EMG's left over from the Hellraiser could fit quite nicely in my newly refinished Squier  Two birds with one tone, ha.



That looks awesome. Even though it's kind of too late and there really isn't much going on in the pickup area for detail, you could paint the emg covers to complete the look.


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## Triple-J (Mar 10, 2011)

I've been considering a silverburst on the body and a custom P-90 Phat Cat (SD do customs for 7's Custom 7-String Humbucker - Seymour Duncan Humbuckers) for my Blackjack for some time so this is quite an inspiration to me and a great idea!


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## AeonSolus (Mar 10, 2011)

i don't know why but that position diagram of the 6 free-way switch always looked like 3 stacks of boobs to me


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## JohnIce (Mar 11, 2011)

Cheers dudes! Great to see some love for both Silverbursts and P-90's, shows why I like hanging around this forum 

Anyway, guitar arrived today! The binding definately stays, it has exactly the silvery shade that I hoped for!


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## Jontain (Mar 11, 2011)

niiice, when will modding work start?


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## JohnIce (Mar 11, 2011)

Jontain said:


> niiice, when will modding work start?



Hopefully sunday


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## ECGuitars (Mar 11, 2011)

Awesome man, be suuuuuuuuuuuuuuper careful around that binding/purfulling on those Schecter's I'm fairly certain is paper thin. Just be really meticulous and careful when you're removing the finish!


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## JohnIce (Mar 11, 2011)

ECGuitars said:


> Awesome man, be suuuuuuuuuuuuuuper careful around that binding/purfulling on those Schecter's I'm fairly certain is paper thin. Just be really meticulous and careful when you're removing the finish!



Thanks for the heads up, man! Come to think of it, is it really necessary to strip the body entirely of paint before refinishing it? How would it be to just sand the clear down with 80 grit-220 grit or so... what's the difference between finishing over primer and finishing over a matte finish?


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## JohnIce (Mar 11, 2011)

Just ordered an uncut sheet of grey pearl lookalike vinyl to cut the dragon and 12th fret inlay out of:


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## BigPhi84 (Mar 11, 2011)

Awesome! As always, a "pic story" is much appreciated!


Phi


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## Murmel (Mar 12, 2011)

John, I almost feel like I should give you money and let you make me a custom guitar. I trust you 
Especially seeing how your other 7 turned out. About that, how are you doing with the home-built/warmoth 7? Are you keeping it?

I can imagine you working the 26.5" Viper 7 of my dreams in a sweaty t-shirt. No homo.


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## JohnIce (Mar 13, 2011)

Murmel said:


> John, I almost feel like I should give you money and let you make me a custom guitar. I trust you
> Especially seeing how your other 7 turned out. About that, how are you doing with the home-built/warmoth 7? Are you keeping it?
> 
> I can imagine you working the 26.5" Viper 7 of my dreams in a sweaty t-shirt. No homo.





I honestly don't know if I'll keep up building, as I don't really have the time, facilities or interest in buying all the necessary tools to really make a professional instrument. When you're building for yourself you can accept the imperfections and roll with them, as I did for a long time with my last build, but if I were to build for other people I'd want to make sure the product would be up to good standards, not to mention sure I could get it there without wasting time and materials by making mistakes.

I don't know what I'll do with the old guitar, I'm taking the pickups so it won't really be useable, but I'll want to keep the bridge (mofo cost me over $300) for future use. The neck might be handy to keep around, but in that case I'd want to fill the tuner holes on the right side and reshape the headstock, because as it is now the angles of the D and G strings from the tuners to the nut need to be a lot more steep to get optimal tuning stability.


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## signalgrey (Mar 16, 2011)

emailed SD about custom P-Rails for a 7....surprise...no go. Thought id add this in to the uber mod mix


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## JohnIce (Mar 16, 2011)

signalgrey said:


> emailed SD about custom P-Rails for a 7....surprise...no go. Thought id add this in to the uber mod mix



That sucks


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## JohnIce (Mar 17, 2011)

Some progress:


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## JohnIce (Mar 17, 2011)

I ran into a problem when I was going to fill the pickup cavity... my dad always has a stash of wood as he's always building stuff, but it's still winter and snow here so all of that stuff is bloated to all hell. If I used that in my guitar, it'd shrink pretty quickly.

So I looked around the house for something, ANYTHING, that I could mutilate to fill the pickup cavity...


...BINGO!










The gunstock from an old Mauser, I don't know the year but I think it's a WWII era gun...


...fucking metal.

Here's more progress:


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## PyramidSmasher (Mar 17, 2011)

JohnIce, you are one smooth operator.


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## JohnIce (Mar 17, 2011)

This will be the last for today. I'll get to scraping the binding tomorrow.


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## technomancer (Mar 17, 2011)

Pretty cool 

Have you guys tried emailing Vintage Vibe Guitars about 7 string P-90s?


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## BlackMastodon (Mar 17, 2011)

Mmmmm silver burst.


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## BrainArt (Mar 17, 2011)

BlackMastodon said:


> Mmmmm silver burst.





It's looking awesome, John.


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## ykcirj (Mar 17, 2011)

Could you go into more detail, or give some tips on painting a burst finish? I'm working on a project (I'll post a thread when it's done) and it would be awesome to try a burst finish out on it. That's the best looking schecter I've seen. Great job!


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## JohnIce (Mar 18, 2011)

ykcirj said:


> Could you go into more detail, or give some tips on painting a burst finish? I'm working on a project (I'll post a thread when it's done) and it would be awesome to try a burst finish out on it. That's the best looking schecter I've seen. Great job!



Thanks man!  I don't know if the pro's have some special method for it, but I just use a spray can and hope to Jebus my hand is steady enough  I ended up doing three tries to get it right on this one. But then I didn't have anything to practice on. I think if you cut some shapes out of a spare piece of wood and practiced on bursting them you could be a little more confident in getting the guitar right the first time.

Also, I learned this time that it's good to have a more detailed plan beforehand on how you want the horns/neck joint area bursted. I ended up improvising there and all in all it could've looked a lot better. but I think I've got a plan on how to draw attention from that, we'll see


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## CrushingAnvil (Mar 18, 2011)

That looks fantastic, buddy. Although, wouldn't your family be pissed for desecrating an antique WWII rifle?

The only thing is, it looks like you could have done that burst better.


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## synrgy (Mar 18, 2011)

CrushingAnvil said:


> Although, wouldn't your family be pissed for desecrating an antique WWII rifle?



I know *my* jaw hit the floor when I saw that, anyway..


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## Jontain (Mar 18, 2011)

very impressive, how is working around the binding?


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## JohnIce (Mar 18, 2011)

CrushingAnvil said:


> That looks fantastic, buddy. Although, wouldn't your family be pissed for desecrating an antique WWII rifle?
> 
> The only thing is, it looks like you could have done that burst better.



It was actually my dad's idea, he got it for free when he was buying something else in a gun shop, and he's a WWII afficionade so the store owner thought he might like it. It wasn't an actual rifle though, just a gunstock.

I'm satisfied with the burst aside from the top horn, but I'll see if I can cover that up with a design of sorts.


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## Murmel (Mar 19, 2011)

Very nice. 
A shame Hellraisers come with those awful inlays though. I'm not fond of them at all, but other than that it looks like it's coming together nicely.


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## JohnIce (Mar 19, 2011)

Murmel said:


> Very nice.
> A shame Hellraisers come with those awful inlays though. I'm not fond of them at all, but other than that it looks like it's coming together nicely.



Cheers! They look a lot nicer in grey pearl than in abalone though, that's for sure. And I stained the fretboard a lot darker which also made them look less tacky. It's like a really dark coffee black now, there's a shade of brown in different lighting but it's actually darker than my last build which had an actual ebony board.


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## JohnIce (Mar 25, 2011)

Update with major letdown... I ordered the "Silver Abalone" from Axewraps, which on the website looks like this:







While in reality, it looks more like this:






Shit is fucking SURF GREEN!

However, since the masking tape I used when painting was kind of bad, I already have some leakage on the binding, which looks a bit iffy up close... so I've decided to sand the whole thing down one last time, disregard the binding this time, repaint the silverburst without masking the binding, and in order to get ANY use of the "silver abalone" vinyl, I'll just spray paint it silver and use it to make faux-binding aswell as the dragon.

Shitty thing to happen when you're in a rush to get the guitar done (our drum recordings are almost finished), but I'll just have to keep at it.


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## b7string (Mar 25, 2011)

JohnIce said:


> Update with major letdown... I ordered the "Silver Abalone" from Axewraps, which on the website looks like this:
> 
> Shit is fucking SURF GREEN!
> 
> ...



Ahh that sux. But you'll probably be happier with the results anyways once you repaint it. Its just a huge pain.


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## JohnIce (Mar 28, 2011)

I ended up sanding down the whole thing one last time:






I ended up happier with the burst this time aswell:
















And assembled! Now all it needs is wiring.


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## Alcmiller (Mar 28, 2011)

hhhwow.


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## Devotion (Mar 29, 2011)

Sweet axe dude!!


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## vansinn (Mar 29, 2011)

Fan, det ar jävlans bra! pls excuce my pseudo-sweedish, but this really looks great, and further matches so much better with the inlays than the stock paintjob.
I see a couple of details on the singlecoil routes that I feel should've been addressed ahead of the paint job.

Could you give us a brief rundown on you paint technique? - I have the feeling you actually used fairly simple techniques, but with great results 

On a second notice, the sanded down pic might give someone inspiration to a pretty cool flaked silver design..


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## CD1221 (Mar 29, 2011)

outstanding


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## Invader (Mar 29, 2011)

Props for you for taking a stock guitar and making it your own!

I got to agree with the post above though. It would've looked so much better with a little more prep work before paint.


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## JohnIce (Mar 29, 2011)

Cheers dudes! Yeah the pickup routes were done with a hand drill and chisels, aswell as a dremel to make cavities for the pickup tabs (I prefer the look without the tabs, like for example the EMG singles). I wish I had a router, but buying a brand new Hellraiser was enough money for a poor student like myself... had to work with what I had.

The painting process was very straight-forward, I used only cheap car paint cans, and used the black for both primer and the burst  So one layer black, one layer silver, one burst layer. Then I used my "silver abalone" vinyl on the whole face of the guitar, drawing out lines for the binding and dragon which I then cut out, effectively making a mask of the entire guitar. Much quicker than working with masking tape  Then I sprayed the binding and dragon with a slightly more expensive silver paint. After the mask was off, I pinstriped the dragon with a black DVD marker, and also used the marker to even out any runs or stains of silver, kind of like scraping the binding on a normal guitar.

That's the whole process! Here are some pics of my friend Scott (scottckr on these forums) giving it a test run:


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