A while back I made the plunge and finally got a joystick, the Mad Catz Fight Stick SE. I enjoyed it a while but had plans to mod it since I had been lurking the shoryuken tech forums daily.

I started off by painting it, I had intended to get simple vinyl die but ended up getting some rustoleum vinyl coating stuff and clear gloss enamel.



It turned out okay except for over doing the start and select buttons and having to sand them and their holes to hell and back.


Later I received the Sanwa JLF, Seimitsu PS-14-GNC's, and a Black Mesh balltop from Gareg's Gamingnow.net



These went in with ease, except for the x button which took a bit more patience.


Lastly I created something to replace the art on top with paint.net. This really does look much better I just can't quite seem to size it smaller without mucking it up. If anyone wants I could upload the PSD file somewhere.

Shoryuken.com has plenty of templates for joysticks floating in their boards.

I went the extra mile (and dollar, ouch) to have it printed by mamemarquees.com and was very satisfied with the result. The material they use feels very tough and resilient. I love how my print came out. Only bad part was how tough it was to cut with an exacto knife or maybe I need more exacto skills. The latin quote translates to "To make peace, prepare for war" I thought it fitting of Holy Order Sol from Guilty Gear.


I took apart the seimitsu buttons to place the button art inside, once again I need to mention how tough mamemarquee's material is and I'm a hobby knife noob. I'm truly surprised I didn't slice my fingers open.



And voila! I also added two extra springs from home depot to the stick to tighten it up a bit, I immediately noticed the difference.


I love how everything turned out and want to thank the Shoryuken community for all the info, links, templates, paint.net(I love making fire out of gradients, and google for image search, also Mad Catz. I just wish someone made plexi-tops for the SE, that would just make it perfect.

Now if only I could improve my fighting game skills as easily.