NGD: ESP Resto-mod #4 -- Kawasaki Green Horizon

[technomancer]

If I liked the 3 knob horizons more I would offer to relieve you of that horrible guitar

 

[Masoo2]

A very fair point. This I would never leave to a spray shop. But there's two point here: paint matching and finishing.

Paint matching is actually really easy and good spray shops have this down pat. Indeed, the paint for my next job is coming from such an establishment. And as a body-only spray, it is something they could also apply. The only reason they ain't is cos I'm happy doing it and don't wanna pay someone else to do something I can do easily.

Which brings me onto finishing. Body-only resprays are piss-easy to do with practice. But yes, a full neck/body spray like this is a whole new level. For that, you need a good luthier.

My main point here is that ESP are obviously not playing to their strengths. By keeping control of paint matching, without having the competency to do it, they putting their pride before what the customer wants.

Having seen the detail that many custom autobody spray shops - even small project garages - have put out, I'm confused why a few of you seem to believe a neck-through guitar would be *that* complicated for a competent auto painter / corrector / detailer?

They do infinitely more complex work daily than your average guitar finish...

With Japan's big auto scene, I would be curious as to whether any of their domestic customisation shops have done guitars on the side...


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regardless of correctness, this color came out stunning and I'd kill for an MII or MV in this finish

 

[Rubbishplayer]

Having seen the detail that many custom autobody spray shops - even small project garages - have put out, I'm confused why a few of you seem to believe a neck-through guitar would be *that* complicated for a competent auto painter / corrector / detailer?

They do infinitely more complex work daily than your average guitar finish...

With Japan's big auto scene, I would be curious as to whether any of their domestic customisation shops have done guitars on the side...


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regardless of correctness, this color came out stunning and I'd kill for an MII or MV in this finish

I kinda agree with you. In my case it's more an emotional reaction related to having to explain stuff to them. I'd probably mask it up before I'd even bring it to them.

But you're right: good spray shops are artists.

 

[narad]

Firstly, nice axe and love the idea of the Kwaka green.

But you're right, reproducing colour from printouts is a way to guarantee a mismatch. Not only do ink repros of photos rarely fully match colours, or fail to take full account of the effect of pearlescents, but unless you've got a high end digital sensor, the camera won't capture some colours properly.

It reminds me of when I used to follow F1: first time I went to a GP, I was shocked to see that James Hunt's Marlboro McLaren was very far from Marlboro red: it was fluorescent orange! A photojournalist explained that this was done to make sure that TV and film cameras rendered the correct colour (red) on TVs and in photos and films.

What ESP should be doing is using the manufacturer's paint codes, which has a single number representing a foolproof recipe - including metallics and perlescent additives - to produce a near perfect match. It'd be easier for them too, so I can't understand why they don't.

I totally agree -- since so far I asked them to do (1) one of their own colors, and (2) two car colors with known color codes, I wouldn't expect any issues really. But this photo printout thing is becoming problematic. Even before with the trans black cherry, there's a few hundred custom shop ESPs with that color. But because they made me print it out and circle an area, I got a color which is clearly different from the original if you ever see two in person (there happens to be an exhibition singlecut in the perfect color hanging up in the craft house). I'm tempted to take in another horizon and be like, yea, it's like what you just did, but make it 20% more "slime" green, here's a paint code. If someone can give you a paint code, I feel like you gotta be crazy to ignore that info. My guess is that they're using some sort of scanner to get the RGB from the printout and going from there, which is def not the way to go for the metallics I want.

If ESP never gets it 100% right for you why do you keep going to them

It's a fair question:
(1) I'm in Japan. Any other shop is going to involve shipping to them, and getting back. If I were to ship to Europe, I would like have to pay EUR import, and I would def pay JP import coming back. Plus time, and plus a non-zero chance of a shipping loss or damage. Refinishing at ESP also takes a huge amount of time at ESP, talking with my gf because most of it is beyond my jp ability. But shipping stuff requires me carrying boxes in 37C heat and arguing with the post office people about my customs declarations, which is even worse.

(2) Value. An ESP refinished at ESP is expensive, but that money goes into the value of the guitar, which is basically refreshed to modern custom shop standards. You also don't need to use some dopey looking fake logo (though this is becoming less of an issue recently). It's also a very thin finish, and I'm not sure you'd get this with most of the other shops. You get all of this stuff guaranteed. In this sense I don't view it as a risk -- I posted this on the FB groups and my DMs blew up with people wanting to buy it. So now I have the choice as to whether I want to try this again or hold on to it, and if I sell it, there was a lot of hassle on my end but there's still another kickass ESP in the world to feel good about.

(3) The tricky stuff. While on one hand it's just a respray and plenty of shops do it, there are parts that are difficult. For instance, old ESP horizons don't have side dots, which inlay into the body. They have sort of oblong black markers which are painted on. Also the binding work on old ones typically requires some repair work (all mine have). ESP bakes this into the price and makes these like new. While I'm sure another luthier could also do it, typically the shops people send these to are churning out refins and I think they're unlikely to give the same amount of care to this. There's a reverse HS green horizon floating around, and it was refinished by HighGain at GMW back in the day, IIRC. You can see all the binding looks yellowed and it really lowers my impression of the guitar because they didn't nail it.

 

[cardinal]

Looks amazing.

On the frets, I've been told that stainless 58118 is horrible to work with because of the thickness; difficult to radius and cut. So maybe whoever did the frets just was sick of it and had really sore hands by the time he was working on the ends so just called it done. Looks ok from the pics.

 

[jaxadam]

That is definitely more ZX-6R and less KX450.

 

[Sermo Lupi]

I'm a sucker for this family of green.

Those daytime pics are...ahem...sublime