My Kirk HAMMETT Monster Movies Collection

Updated
My Kirk HAMMETT Monster Movies Collection

It's been a long since I'd like to share with you guys my custom Kirk's guitars, some of you know them more than others, in details or not, so, here they are :

------------------------------

ESP KH-2 - 'THE MUMMY'

It's a 2003 KH-2 Neck-Thru from the Custom Shop (K0332502), that I picked-up in Holland, with the decal already applied by a professionnal, I picked-up this one 'cause it was one of the most accurate in the market (at this time I didn't know that I would began a monster movie collection ...)

I decided to bring it to the best luthier I use to know, and ask him to make me the real inlays that I draw in Photoshop (it tooks me maybe 3 weeks to get them proper...) and vectorized them. It tooks 10 months to the luthier to get the work done on the guitar, but the result is pretty insane and for sure unique on a "non-Kirk-Hammett-guy" guitar .

As you can see, I pushed the detail to his best, EXCEPT -> The number of knobs, I know since the beginning that the real one has 2 knobs, and mine is a KH-2 so .... It's a great guitar, it's neck-thru ... It sounds great, with 3 or 2 knobs.

-------------------------

ESP KH-2 - 'WHITE ZOMBIE'

My first KH-2 ever, a Custom Shop Bolt-On from 2004 (K-23652). This is my first personnal custom, and the first try with my painter. I work hard to give him details from the Kirk's one and not form the ugly LTD (Sorry ESP for that ... but colors are washed and pickups unpainted).

Final inlays (Bat and spiders) are drawn, and ready to cut, but not done on the fretboard yet ...

This guitar sound terrific, it is close to my '05 KH-2 Vintage CS, and close to the Ouija's from the 90s'. 

The result was brilliant so I decided to bring him the next one ... 

-------------------------------------------------

ESP M-II - 'The BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN'

This is an ESP M-II Neck-Thru from 2007. I added a slot for the 3-way switch and put the Tone knob on the old switch hole. I double-checked the placement of the knobs and they are ok, compared to the graphic too.

The painting process took nearly ten months, details and texts were hard to get genuine, and the covering of the pickups was REALLY tricky, but he took his time and the result is here. The main background colour (this freeking blue/green  ) was a difficulty, so we looked at it under different type of lights on pictures of live shows (Cold and warm lights ...) and we finally get it ! So we can clearly say that this guitar has 2 different colours depending on the ambiant light.

Final inlays (Bride's hair) are drawn, and ready to cut, but not done on the fretboard yet ...

------------------------

ESP M-II - 'DRACULA'

This is the same model as the BRIDE, an ESP M-II, I added the slot for the switch too (not a big deal for me now ). Kirk has 3 models of this type, A 2 and 3 knobs version of this graphic, and a "Dracula Big" version with 3 knobs if I remember ...., I chose the 2 knobs one.

We tried to get the texts properly done, with this "not so white" color, and all the backgroung fadings at the edges.

Final inlays ('Symetric' Bat and Crosses) are drawn, and ready to cut, but not done on the fretboard yet ...

This guitar has its personnal sound that I really like, nothing compare to the BRIDE, More bright and sharp. The BRIDE is rich and loud, with lot of mids.

------------------------------------

So I hope you will enjoy guys, do not hesitate to ask me for details, or question. You got more pictures of them on my profile, go check them if you want.

Cheers,

G.

Kjetil (GRIM) Remen

Nice. I'll go and check them out

Travis L.

DUDE! These are so killer!!!!!! Thanks for sharing :'D

 

Trevor_

You are a very lucky man. I am so jealous.

 

Nathan S.

Whether they are perfect to Kirks or not who cares, they look awesome!!

ESP 348

You have an excellent collection there my friend!! Thank you for sharing!

A dream would be is to have ALL Kirks Monster guitars painted and hanging up in my home!

It would be great to order all new black NTB guitars from the ESP Custom Shop with the correct volume/tone knobs required for each guitar and all with plain Rosewood fretboards.

Then I would send all those guitars to an airbrush artist capable of replicating them all and then onto a luthier to make the correct inlays for each guitar.

Would cost you $70K by the time you're done, but it would be absolutely amazing to own them all.

You have come very close to this and I salute your efforts man!

Thanks again, I loved seeing these pics and reading each guitars stroy. Take care and enjoy!

ESP 348

You reckon they would do those inlays??? The same as Kirk's guitars?

If they would, then definitely as this would save the hassle later on. They won't do the paint.........of course.

Guiguitarz

I don't know if I told you guys, but maybe 2 years ago, I asked to the CS a black M-II with my Eyes of Horus inlays, 2 knobs - 1 switch, Neck-Thru, Rosewood fretboard... and I asked to get it uncoated (to apply myself the paint, and then clearcoat it ...) They came with a $4,500 with no inlays and an extra $1,000 for them, And they refused to did not the clearcoat, "every guitars leave the factory finished" they told me.

I went to an official ESP Custom Shop seller in Paris, and I discussed about it, he told me that it's pretty honest, and then I asked for the graphic ... He told me that I could ask the CS to do it for me, but I will need to give them more than 16k$ and a year of crafting and painting. That words were pretty true, cause few weeks ago you've seen the White Zombie available for Custom order at 16k$ ...

Guiguitarz

Sorry, the quote of the M-II custom was in EUROS, so 5,500€ ($6,6331 today ) for it, with inlays done, but the entire custom guitar with graphic and inlays from ESP was in DOLLARS.

ESP 348

Never knew that man, thanks for sharing.

So that's pretty good! US $5500 for the guitar with the correct inlays from the ESP Custom Shop!

Ship to a master airbrush artist and spend another $1500 to $2000 to airbrush it. **I am not sure what it costs to airbrush in other parts of the world**

Under $10K for each guitar to have an airbrushed Monsters collection of Kirk Hammett Custom Shop quality guitars.

The Custom Shop will NEVER paint you a Mummy guitar, but I am sure you already know this. Sounds like they are happy to paint the other Monster guitars of Kirk's though.

An airbrush expert that can replicate it would be the next best thing. And there would be plenty of people out there in the world that could replicate the Mummy, Bride, Zombie etc.... with paint.

Suddenly, this crazy idea doesn't sound so bad.

Sephiroth

I enquired with a USA dealer about getting a custom shop guitar with correct inlays back in 2007. I chased him up after no response in a week, he asked me to resend the pictures of the inlays, which I did, and then he responded back saying he'd sent the request off to ESP and was awaiting a reply. Nothing ever came back and I stopped chasing. 

Half the reason I gave up was because I didn't know who I could get to do the artwork. What happens if you get the guitar back and the artwork isn't how it should be? If I could be happy in the knowledge that thepaintjob  could be done by someone I would start enquiring again about getting the custom guitar made.

Gisornator

Epic collection 

vex_sb

Holy shit :-O 

Colin Groove

Very nice, man!!!

Guiguitarz

For y'all, here's my actual working on the Bride's inlays : 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BfqDdJihRg6/?taken-by=guiguitarz 

 

ESP 348

Looking good man.

Guiguitarz

Bride's update : All the inlays are cut ! I'm actually routing the fretboard right now, 4 fret markers left to route ! Enjoy guys

Nathan S.

Awesome Gui!!

ESP 348

Wow man! That is awesome! Looking forward to seeing more pics.

DanieLibuy



Wanna see more!

Post to Thread