I'm about to put a 7 string painkiller into a 707 route, pending it's arrival. The wait is driving me slowly insane, after using a 707, an 81-7 and a Blackout I'm somewhat eager to install a decent pickup in the guitar :lol: this of course has led to me pondering/testing in the meantime with regards to fitting a passive.
You have a couple options with regards to aesthetic solutions really. The easiest two would be either pickup rings or a custom pickguard. Since your guitar has a carved top, you're left with the rings.
You can go one of two ways with pickup rings. One option is to order a custom set from
here, it seems this guy's work comes highly reccomended judging by the word of mouth. I can't vouch for it personally, however. This option would (I presume) involve drilling holes in your guitar to mount the ring, which is enough to put me off.
Alternatively, just go for a regular set of 7 string pickup rings such as
these, found halfway down this page. You will need to mount the ring with long screws, such as pickup mounting screws; this is because the screwholes on the rings line up inside the 707 route. I've just mounted 2 rings on my guitar in this fashion and it's fine, they're quite solid. I plan to direct mount the pickups however, the rings are purely cosmetic (I also have some dummy screwheads in where the pickup would usually be screwed to the ring). This method has the added bonus of being cheaper and also not requiring any drilling on the face of your guitar.
As far as the baseplate tabs go, they are too wide by in the region of 4.5mm if memory serves. It's too much to grind away from the ears without grinding through to the hole, unfortunately. However, it is entirely possible to bend the baseplate legs inwards, then bend the tabs flat again, until they align with both the size of the route, and the screwholes 707 pickup was screwed into. I actually tested this with a spare baseplate (from a seymour duncan which I hacked to pieces for what it's worth, which should be at least approximately the same size as a bk 7 string baseplate), it appears to work fine. I can post feedback as to how the install goes once my pickup arrives (I'm trying to repress urges to assault the postie if he doesn't bring it tomorrow :x ).
As far as the custom pickguard goes, purely for reference for anyone else with this predicament, you can either make one yourself from a blank, or there are several places online offering custom pickguards, such as
here. I'm informed they will ship to the UK, and I know for a fact they've made pickguards to cover up emg 808 routes before now, so 707 ones shouldn't be a problem.
