The ESP Guitar Company

Hi fellow guitar players! 

For the past 5 years I have been all over Europe for work and haven’t been able (or didn’t make time) to play. I quit my band 5 years ago and left my guitar collection in the corner of a room (with humidifier and in their cases).

five years later; I settled down now and since I was helping my brother in law to set up his Squier two months back, the passion for guitars ignited again.

Since I’ve been playing more and more onone of my “cheaper” Epiphone guitars for two months, I am now taking the time to fix my guitars up one by one to start playing them again. 

Leaving your guitars in the corner of a room for 5 years doesn’t particularly help them. Even in their cases with a humidifier on. Especially my Gibsons were in terrible condition. Aside from all the guitars having old strings, dry fretboards and the usual; all my Gibsons had weird issues (e.g. inlay on fretboards coming loose, diamond split inlay on headstock coming loose and falling off, almost all Grover locking tuners being “stuck” in locking position). 

My ESP and LTD guitars had resisted the abuse for net getting used much better (the reason I’m not buying Gibsons anymore). IMO guitars from the WMI in Korea simply beat Gibsons on quality and durability these days. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to maintain/restring my LTD KH WZ (from 2014) due to the Floyd Rose floating system, but I really wanted to play her so I fixed her up last night. 

She plays like a dream now I’ve gave her some maintenance and lowered the action a bit; but when Stringing the guitar up again, I noticed something strange happening to the finish around the tuners on the headstock. The finish around the tuners “wrinkled” up due to (what seems) the downward pressure of the strings. It’s just a bit odd since I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary when stringing her up and I kept the Floyd rose steady to prevent extreme pressure that could possibly break the strings. It’s even just a set of .10s (the same as were in before). 

It doesn’t bother my that much since it’s a working instrument (and since my Gibsons are way worse). But I’m just curious for an explanation for this odd wrinkling. Did something similar ever happen to any of you? And how come the finish “wrinkles”. You would expect finish to crack or chip, but for it to wrinkle and get air stuck underneath seems a bit odd. Does anyone know what finish they did on these guitars? Just to add; I bought the guitar new from the store in 2014, so I know for a fact it’s not some previous damage I missed   who can help me solve this mystery?