# Anyone tried changing their LTD decal to a ESP decal?



## sunung1188 (Jan 22, 2014)

Greetings

Has anyone tried changing their LTD decal to a ESP decal?
I'm trying to get my LTD Warbird to look like the ESP (I know, I just can't afford the ESP) and was wondering:

1. Has anyone tried it? How did you do it and how were the results?
2. Anyone know where I can buy one of these white esp decals like the pic?

Merry Cheers!


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## Necromagnon (Jan 22, 2014)

I think you have 2 options:
1) buy a sticker and stick correctly on the headstock. Easy, fast, cheap, but most chances it looks really cheap and horrible.
2) you unmount everything on the headstock, sand it down to remove the original decal, put the new ESP one (you can do it fairly easily at home), and re-laquer the headstock. This one the most professional, the cleanest way to do it, but also the most exepensive, the longest, and you have the risk that the finish won't look so great (except if you give it to a professional).
Also note that if you try to go for the second solution, you'll completely remove any commercial value of the guitar, since otherway, it might be considered as counterfeit (I'm not 100% sure but I won't take the risk if I were, it's not worthy).


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## sunung1188 (Jan 22, 2014)

The first option seems to be better for me. But it's just what can I use to temporarily color off the ltd decal (i.e. a marker or some sort) and then apply the esp decal over the black remains.


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## RV350ALSCYTHE (Jan 22, 2014)

It will still have the origins on the back of the head.
I wouldn't worry about it being labelled counterfeit.
I'd consider it a modded LTD, still says made in korea (or are these chinese now?) on the back of the head.

Personally I think this isn't worth the effort/price.
It's three Characters, which won't make the guitar any better in terms of quality or play-ability.

As a general statement: Branding isn't something worth worrying about.


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## Neilzord (Jan 22, 2014)

Just get a black-backed ESP sticker  


Anything else I feel is just too much effort / too higher risk and frankly pointless (IMHO) 

It's not like ltd are bad guitars!


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## Manurack (Jan 22, 2014)

Hahaha dude when I got my first LTD guitar at age 16, a V-200 bolt on model I did a new paint job on it, and took the ESP manual that came with it, cut out the ESP logo then super glued it to the headstock. 

Since LTD V guitars mostly come in black, it looked like a custom shop ESP V with a different paint job and the ESP logo on it. Basically it was a polished turd LOL!


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## sunung1188 (Jan 22, 2014)

This is so smart! Yes, I should just get or custom make a black backg-backed ESP decal


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## sunung1188 (Jan 22, 2014)

I'm going to create one decal. Could anybody help me with:

1. Size dimensions for the ESP decal above?
2. Could someone introduce me to a site where I could custom make an ESP decal?

* I really kindly acknowledge some saying that I should stick to it. It's just that I really want the customshop ESP version but can't afford it and would feel that the esp decal would make me feel good  But thank you for the opinions


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## nikolix (Jan 22, 2014)

Back in my days we would replace ESP logo with LTD.


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## Devotee (Jan 22, 2014)

I hate it when people do this to guitars... If you wanted the ESP version so bad maybe you should have saved up a little longer instead of deciding to screw with a perfectly good guitar - and potentially ruin it - by sticking a cheap-ass decal on the headstock to satisfy some kind of guitar inferiority complex.


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## DevinShidaker (Jan 22, 2014)

Devotee said:


> I hate it when people do this to guitars... If you wanted the ESP version so bad maybe you should have saved up a little longer instead of deciding to screw with a perfectly good guitar - and potentially ruin it - by sticking a cheap-ass decal on the headstock to satisfy some kind of guitar inferiority complex.



Is this your guitar he's planning on doing this to? No? well then 

Have fun with it, modding guitars is probably the most fun thing about guitars next to playing them. It starts with putting on a decal, and suddenly every production model guitar you see "would look so much better" with your own ideas. Good luck!


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## FIXXXER (Jan 22, 2014)

Neilzord said:


> It's not like ltd are bad guitars!



unfortunately the newly indonesian produced are pretty 
inferior compared to the korean made models.


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## FIXXXER (Jan 22, 2014)

sunung1188 said:


> Greetings
> 
> Has anyone tried changing their LTD decal to a ESP decal?
> I'm trying to get my LTD Warbird to look like the ESP (I know, I just can't afford the ESP) and was wondering:
> ...




i don't see any sense in this. if the guitar is good it does not matter what the logo on the headstock says. for me personally it would not change anything if the logo would say ESP instead of LTD because i would always know that it's an LTD and this would not make me feel any better about it


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## sunung1188 (Jan 22, 2014)

envenomedcky said:


> Is this your guitar he's planning on doing this to? No? well then
> 
> Have fun with it, modding guitars is probably the most fun thing about guitars next to playing them. It starts with putting on a decal, and suddenly every production model guitar you see "would look so much better" with your own ideas. Good luck!


 

Thank you, I appreciate it  I will have fun and post some pics!


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## sunung1188 (Jan 22, 2014)

LOL you can't be serious


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## Necromagnon (Jan 22, 2014)

FIXXXER said:


> i don't see any sense in this. if the guitar is good it does not matter what the logo on the headstock says. for me personally it would not change anything if the logo would say ESP instead of LTD because i would always know that it's an LTD and this would not make me feel any better about it


I agree.
I even would add a personnal anecdote on this particular case: I remember a show we've given a couple of years ago, in small venue in France. One guy got an LTD Horizon, pretty nice, sounds and play great, a nice axe anyway (good old LTD). And he made the same thing as you're planing to do: he stick a small ESP stickers (it was still the old squary logo) on the LTD. But with time, the decal started to unstuck in the corners, and it became so cheap looking, so ridiculous, that it was even worse than just sayin "I play an LTD and it plays great!".

But that's just purely personnal, you do whatever you want with your guitar (as said above, less rude maybe  ).


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## Neilzord (Jan 22, 2014)

FIXXXER said:


> unfortunately the newly indonesian produced are pretty
> inferior compared to the korean made models.



Good Point, My Korean MH1000NT is in a different league to my Indo MH000NT!


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