feraledge
Heard the Good News about Maple Fretboards?
ESP LTD H302.
Made in Korea, 2002.
So at this point, I think I've had an H302, H301, and at least one H400. Early 00's Korean made cockstocked H's. If you stick it out, you can usually find pretty awesome deals on these and the quality of them are pretty damn great. ESP Standard Series/EII? Nah, but they're solid guitars. Total workhorse and really well built.
See thru black, neck thru body. 3 piece maple neck, mahogany body. The flame maple top is lackluster, but a plainer flame top over veneer?? Looks versus tonality. Doesn't look bad, sounds really solid. The natural binding is a killer touch on these.
Got it from GC Used. So that means I had to spend about an hour cleaning up the fretboard. I actually used the last of my fretboard cleaner. Will do another round of clean up when I get more and take the time to do a level and crown on the frets. They're not in awful shape, but there's some wear. Figured it could use as much love as possible, since the previous owner was pretty neglectful. Have to replace some eroded/rusty screws. Bridge/TOM in solid condition, still need a bit more clean up though. Sperzels were a nice touch. Enough to make up for a few dings around the edges.
At some point it got Dimarzios installed. I didn't pull the neck to see what's in there, but the bridge was a Super Distortion. Did not care for that, but had anticipated my wants anyways. Got a solid deal on an open box Black Winter bridge PUP, came the same day as the guitar and installed it that night. The BW fits the guitar really perfectly. I have no complaints at all. It's 100% what I was anticipating from this guitar and that combination.
Ended up going with this as something to put in B Standard/Drop A. Was looking pretty widely for a guitar to fill that niche, but all I had for sure was a hardtail to be able to switch between the two tunings. The deal I got on this and having had nothing but good experiences with prior H301/302/400 and MH400NTs pushed me over. No regrets.
Sounds great and I've got a renewed fondness for Drop A. Have 14-58 on there now (my old 7 string set minus the 11), could stand to gauge up to a 60 possibly, but not losing sleep over it. The BW handles it with its typical tight aggressiveness.
Longest I've sat on an NGD post in a bit, but a cold cycling around the house and shitty weather, just not good for pics. I'll do an update when I do the fretwork and/or get some solid pics outside.
If you're on the fence about these guitars, they're solid. I see people trying to sell them way over "market" but worth holding out for deals on for sure.
And, of course, cockstock.
Here's some more pics:
