This is a technical guide to these guitars, both to assist in setup, and also to explain the hows and whys of how the Paul Dean guitars work.
SERIAL NUMBERS & DATING
**UPDATE - ODYSSEY Paul Dean Serials & Dating 4/17/2017 - I met another owner of an Odyssey guitar via e-mail, he e-mailed me the serial# of his guitar, apparently the Odyssey guitars DID indeed have serial# on them. Seems Odyssey dating works like this...
82012 = 1982 guitar #012 - weather this means it's the 12th Paul Dean made that year, or the 12th Odyssey guitar made that year has yet to be figured out. I know that Paul had 50 commissioned, but what makes it tricky is the Odyssey site seems to show mostly guitars from the 1978-1981 period so I dunno about Odyssey production from 1982 onward - maybe the Paul Deans were the only guitars made that year (they were also making Aoyette drums, or at least sharing a factory with them).
So it's safe to say that ALL Odyssey guitars are likely 1982 model year guitars. Which would make sense since Paul commissioned them all at the same time.
I'm still working out how to find a value to these guitars because they had a VERY limited production run (only 50 guitars), slightly less than a quarter of them went to friends/family/Paul himself, and the rest were split roughly 50/50 for Charity/Auction and Sale at local Vancouver music shops circa 1982-1983.
More recently another viewer contacted me with another Odyssey with a serial number over 50 - having me wonder 2 things on these guitars - if there were actually more than 50, if Odyssey pulled a Charvel like Charvel did with EVH's Bumblebee and made a few out of the commissioned for sale? Or if maybe Dean commissioned a few more than expected. Not really that important but if so he probably has one of the last ones built. I also speculate having a higher serial than 50 means that it could have had some other guitars stuck in between members of the Odyssey production runs - ie - there's been a Flying Vee on Reverb as of a year ago that has VERY similar features to the Paul Dean guitars (Super II pickups in both positions, odd since most guitarists only put a super II in the neck, and a Leo Quan badass bridge....for all we know, could have been another custom guitar Dean ordered given the specs, either that or Odyssey adopted Dean's specs across the product line to some extent at that point). See picture of said Flying V below.
The Flying Vee above was one of the later Odyssey guitars built during the time of the Paul Dean models, but not his actual guitar. It is, however, a bit interesting that there are so many features shared with the Paul Dean models.
HONDO
I did some more research on who made what. Currently Wikipedia states that Hondo's only Japanese production guitars were the Professional series - making the Paul Deans a Korean built instrument - but it did clarify who the Japanese makers were - Tokai and Matsamoku.....but this has me wondering because factual information on the internet is always a gamble...
THEORETICAL - 11/27/2017
So I got my crazy arse back onto Vintaxe.com to look up details on these models and lo and behold - MORE Hondo catalogs. And as I looked through the catalogs on these guitars, I started to think something - maybe these WERE Japanese built - but only the first year, I have a reason to believe this...
If you read the catalog listing from 1983 on the History page - you'll notice they offer BOTH models, and are offering up "Custom Order Options" on the Paul Dean II. This is NOT offered on the 1984 model year offerings, and around 1984 or so was when Hondo/Musicorp/IMC started to go under - or get "Mothballed" for the Charvette deal for awhile until the late 80's/early 1990's.
Typically a company would not offer such options as options or even at all on a Korean guitar. The most you could ever hope for are color options. Now I may be wrong about this, but I read that the Professional Series were made in the Tokai and Matsamoku plants in Japan - and I have been told by both multiple sources that Hondo had these models made in Japan - but Wikipedia says otherwise.
So basically, my theory on production now, is that the first production year was made in Japan, most likely by Tokai given the quality of build, and the fact I have played and felt a Tokai guitar from the 80's before, and the build quality is very simialr to my 83' PD II and others I have seen.
So for now....that's my theory and I'm sticking to it.
END THEORETICAL
Something odd I've noticed - no serials on any of the Hondo guitars. I'm thinking of ideas on how to mark your guitar as uniquely yours without using a serial# to prevent loss through theft. If the Hondos did, maybe they were paper labels that wear off. Either way, I'm working on an I.D. idea on these. I currently use my own special I.D. system.
NECKS - Paul Dean's original necks vary quite a bit. The earliest guitar (Gangs) has a Telecaster style headstock. Later variants run very close to a Danelectro/Coral Bobcat/electric Sitar style headstock variants. The one Odyssey used is the one we see on the P-90 guitar he used the most during the "Get Lucky" era (1981-1983).
Odyssey's neck, meaning the original 1981-1983 guitars, only 50 built, used the same headstock seen above from Odyssey. Similiar to what Hondo did, some have the brass disc on the headstock, some have the full "Odyssey Paul Dean" script on the headstock. Seems there were far more scripts than discs though. The only "Disc" guitar known for sure is the one shown in the 1983 Guitar Player Magazine article.
Hondo had a few headstock variations. The most common one is the one seen on the second and third examples. While looking at some ads from 1984-1985, it seems Hondo may have changed the headstock, making it even more boxy than the original design was, and then changing it over to the standard Hondo headstock design for some final releases.
The necks on the Odysseys (both variants) and the Hondos are chambered with 1/4" Resonance slots parallel to the Truss Rod on both sides. This is the defining feature of these guitars along with the 10 degree headstock tilt and machine heads. The truss rod adjustment is at the heel end, like an old Fender.
The very last Hondo Paul Dean's though got a standard 24.75" Scale neck similar to those used on the Hondo Deluxe Series Flying V and Explorer models, which are the right scale length, but they lack the tilt headstock and resonance slots, that's the first picture we see up top from a 1985.
The "Sweetheart" necks are of the same design, however, the scale length (to me at least) is unknown. It appears (and sounds to my ears) they used a 24.75" scale still like the originals. I can confirm the truss rods, particularly on the "Sweetheart Customs" because one of Odyssey's luthiers posted a picture of the necks under construction to Facebook/Instagram in 2021. These necks seemed to use Gotoh tuners the most often. It's a little bit unknown what the import necks were like.
BODIES - The body shape remained the same on all 1980's versions (roughly, there are some small line differences between the Odyseey and the Hondo guitars, notably the Hondo bass side waist is slightly longer, and the pickguard on the Hondo conforms to the body shape of the guitar a lot better than it does on the Odyssey), at least compared to earlier Odysseys (the Ad guitar had the same body shape as the production Hondos). The only changes is a possible change of body woods by 1984. It's possible they used Alder, Agathis, Basswood, or even Plywood for the bodies after 1984 when Paul started to play Kramers, I just don't see any other reason for applying an opaque finish aside from saving cost of production. One example was a PD3 I saw on e-bay that had a flame maple top (Seen below on the far right). This guitar apparently has some kind of Veneer applied to the top as you can see the arm countour section is entirely blacked out. This was a common practice for Asian guitar makers making guitars out of plywood or using veneers in the 1980's in order to hide any wood differences or changes that would not be visibly appealing to prospective customers.
The Sweetheart bodies use a slightly more Stratocaster-like body design, omitting some of the roundness of the original design, and changing the general shape of the horns, but keeping the same sort of "bulbous" appearance. The pickguards on these guitars were generally also slimmed down to be a Stratocaster pickguard down the bass side, and a Paul Dean style pickguard down the treble side with a slimmed area on the treble side horn.
PICKUPS - The original Paul Dean built instruments had a wide array of pickups. "Gangs" had a trio of Seymour Duncan Vintage Flats, P-90 had two P-90's that could have been Seymour Duncan, DiMarzio, or Gibson products, and the final and third design - the one we see him with the most often from Keep It Up Onward, is the dual DiMarzio Super II equipped version. I surmise that these pickups were used because they have a close output and sound to the P-90 pickups (which I was told by the man himself sounded "sick" - as in REALLY GOOD), but without the noise and hum P-90's are succeptable to.
All Odyssey Paul Deans in that original 50 guitar run used DiMarzio Super II DP104 epoxy potted pickups that look like a plain, blocky cover with hex pole pieces in it. They measure around 8.4K Ohms and have a ceramic magnet, and have that sort of P-90's like cut, but with a thicker low end, and the highs slightly augmented.
The Hondo Paul Dean guitars used a few different pickups...
The Paul Dean II has the most pickup options, having been shipped with DiMarzio K10s, 2 variants of the Samick X14, and it's been rumored they also used DiMarzio Super II's in some of these as well, likely for a $60 up-charge. The Paul Dean III came with three Samick X13 single coils, it's upgrade was the machine heads.
The X13s were around 6.4K to 11.5K depending on wind, and were kind-of a hot Strat type pickup, though the construction is very different, with a loose coil inside, ceramic magnet, and six pole pieces attached somehow within the wax potting inside the tall pickup casing. They have metal bottoms on them with a ground wire soldered to them for extra shielding. They sound like hot-wound Strat pickups usually.
The X14s came in two versions, one that was open-coil that's the most common used on these guitars, and the other ones were closed top designed to mimic the look of a DiMarzio DP104 Super II Humbucker. These pickups were not exclusive to the Paul Dean.
It's likely some early "DiMarzio" guitars got K10's installed which were similiar to the Super II design DiMarzio put out. 8.4K Ohms, Ceramic Magnet, just open coil and slug poles all around, while some rare others got the block Super IIs installed. It's hard to tell considering Hondo's marketing. It also seems the DiMarzio option was dropped off sometime in 1984 or early 1985. This option was only on the Paul Dean II.
The newer Odyssey "Sweetheart" guitars were setup with Canadian Made "Tone Rider" Humbuckers, in particular, a Generator in the Bridge.
The Prototypes included a few "budget" versions with a Tone Rider Generator in the bridge, one with a Hot Rail (Tone Rider Jr?) in the neck and special rotary switching, and a few with dual Tone Rider humbuckers installed in them. Paul Dean's guitar - the "Woodshed" prototype, got Tone Riders put in it, as well as the "Release" guitar.
HEADSTOCK LOGOS - The early Hondos had a script logo similar to that found on the original Odyssey guitars - this includes the PD II and PD III. Towards the later part of the production run, particularly when they started using regular Hondo headstocks, they started using the (H) or "H-Coin", or what the Samick Wiki calls the "Sunrise" logo with a smaller version of the script logo for the "Paul Dean II/III" logo.
I speculate the "Sunrise" guitars are Korean while the Script guitars are (mostly) Japanese. Hondo did have as many as three different Japanese guitar building houses working for them (Tokai, who did the Fame Series, Matsamoku, whom I believe predates the Paul Dean guitars, and Kasuga has been mentioned on more than one site I've seen). I've seen people who inspected the Sunrise guitars say the build quality looks more Korean, while people who have seen my posts of my Script logo PD2, as well as others who reviewed this guitar online, mentioned the quality was akin to a Japanese (FujiGen Gakki) Fender of the time.
NUTS, STRINGS, WHATNOT
Despite the 1/4" Resonance Slots in the neck, these guitars have some of the most solid necks I've ever seen, stronger than most Fender necks actually, and that's the HONDO version!
The truss rod should not need much attention at all! The neck is almost strong enough to support a set of .013 gauge strings with only minor truss rod tension. You want to make sure if using lighter strings it is secured though, or it will rattle, which damages the guitar's ability to utilize the resonance slots and makes a weird noise like there's a bunch of angry hornets banging around inside the neck. Typically for this kind of guitar, I suggest at least a .009 or .010 gauge set for light strings because they will provide enough pull to get good neck relief.
Depending on the neck slot depth, you might need to shim the neck to bring the end of the fingerboard up close enough to the strings action-wise. The reason is the Leo Quan badass style bridge the guitar uses tends to sit pretty high, it was originally designed for use with Gibson Les Paul style guitars which have a tilted back neck.
PICKUPS - a BIT ON VERSIONS OF THE DIMARZIO SUPER II & THE HONDO PICKUPS
Samick Wiki has finally given a little more detail on the pickups. So while Samick Wiki says there were two models of pickup used, there were actually three.
The most confusing part of the whole situation is that Hondo had 2 pickups sold stock with the guitar initially, the DiMarzio K10, which was what was installed in the guitar for the $60 upgrade, at least initially, and then the Samick X14 humbucker. The K10 had a Designed by DiMarzio stamping but looks otherwise almost identical to the X14. The K10 guitars had a "DiMarzio Pickups" sticker behind the nut on the headstock, the X14 guitars did not. However, this sticker is easily lost.
That said, there is at least one instance of Super II humbuckers being used in an actual Paul Dean from the factory. A guy who was on my Facebook group posted his 1985 Hondo Paul Dean II, it's a very late model with a different style neck and dual DiMarzio Super IIs in it just like the one on the left, which is the same as used in the Odyssey guitars. So apparently they did used Super IIs, and K10s, and X14s in the Paul Dean II.
Currently, DiMarzio STILL makes the DP104 Super II (Above), but now they are an open-coil humbucker (above - left), or available with a metal cover on them (above - right), which may alter the tone a little. I suggest the modern open-coil pickups to use on the Hondos with unmolested pickguards (like mine). But if you like the closed/expoxy look, it can be approximated using the new metal-cover versions.
The Paul Dean III presumably used whatever Strat copy pickups Hondo was using at the time. I think at this point that these were the versions that appear to be Strat pickups, but are actually big plastic, taller-than-usual Strat pickup shaped shells with a odd mess of wax, wire, magnets, and pole pieces permanently glued into the casing and covered with a metal cover on the bottom. Some of these are hotter than usual - I had an Arbor Strat with a set that had a 11.5K Bridge pickup (!!!!).
HONDO PAUL DEAN III PICKUPS - The Hondo Paul Dean III Came with 3 Hondo X13 single coil pickups. These were the same pickups used in the Fame Series Strat copies and others and were designed to sound like slightly hotter Stratocaster style pickups, as the Samick Wiki says they were supposed to be the single-coil version of an X14. I don't think any Paul Dean III's ever shipped with DiMarzios (if you know of one, let me know, heck, even give a photo). Also, the Paul Dean III featured the capability to have all three pickups or neck+bridge via a push/pull tone pot, at least, that's what a couple people who have had Paul Dean III's have told me so that possibly was an actual feature of the model (and a rather early use of Push/Pull pots on a guitar).
UPGRADING YOUR HONDO TO PERIOD CORRECT PICKUPS
The originals can be upgraded to the Super II Epoxy case pickups like I have on mine on the left. The key thing is you will need a soldering iron and a wiring diagram. I will be redoing these in the future in DIY Layout Creator, as this page needs some serious restructuring to make it look better in the new format.
HONDO PAUL DEAN II & ODYSSEY PAUL DEAN WIRING DIAGRAMS
There are 2 diagrams because one is for the Odyssey guitars (1982-1983) and the Hondo guitars that got Super II pickups from the factory. Hondos that came with the open-coil humbuckers, which were either Samick X14s or in some early instances, DiMarzio designed K10s, use the diagram for 2 conductor wire. These were made using DIY Layout Creator. I'm still finding the values on the treble bypass capacitor and on the tone control cap. These are actually pretty basic guitars wiring-wise, just a standard 2-pickup setup. Also, I used a Gibson style toggle because DIY Layout creator lacks the budget style switch used by Hondo on their guitars. That said, it also would be a useful reference if you are to upgrade the switch type to a Gibson style switch. But like I said, the wiring is dead simple.
HONDO PAUL DEAN III WIRING DIAGRAM
The Hondo Paul Dean III came with 3 Samick X13 single coil pickups, ranging between 4K-6K Ohms each, with them being gradually wound hotter as they went toward the bridge position. The general wiring is pretty much that of a standard Hondo strat copy, but it has one special feature. Sometime a couple years ago, A fan posted a photograph of one of Paul Dean's more recent Stratocaster guitars that he's been using (or "Body Parts" strats as they are called), in particular, the red and black one. All of these were wired up like his prototype "The Dean Machine" guitar in the history section (which we will discuss next). Basically, his older guitars use a large toggle to turn on one of the three pickups to allow for pickup combinations out of the normal. The method Hondo used was to add a push/pull (quite cutting edge for the 80's TBH) pot for the volume control (fitting as that's where Paul's special switch is), to add in the neck position pickup allowing for 7 total combos. (Neck, Neck+Middle, Middle, Neck+bridge, Bridge, All three Pickups on, or Neck+Bridge). Granted the accuracy might not be perfect as I wired this looking at blown up pictures of a PAul Dean III wiring harness I found on e-bay recently that the owner reports came out of a guitar he gifted to Paul with Fender pickups in it. Anyway, I did my best. If you have any improvements (as with the rest) or info, let me know.
"THE DEAN MACHINE"/"BODY PARTS STRAT" WIRING (SPECULATORY, mostly....)
So anyone that has ever seen Paul's "old funky strat", "Gangs" (thought to be one of the original prototypes for these guitars), or one of his current partscasters. People for ages have been trying to get convenient, and non-show-stopping methods of getting a 3-pickup Strat type design to have more combinations than the basic 3 they shipped with between 54'-79', or the basic 5-way method we still use today. Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix would balance the switch between settings to get the sounds that come stock today, Billy Squier wired his tone control to the middle pickup as a volume knob to blend in, Elliot Easton of The Cars had a toggle to add the neck pickup on his Panorama tour strats, and Paul Dean would do it by using a 3-way selector for the neck and bridge pickups, and then wire in a toggle switch to introduce the bridge pickup, and companies like Mighty Mite, and even the Paul Dean Kramer models had individual toggle switches. I myself use the Elliot Easton trick with an extra setting that introduces one of the tone controls to a single coil bridge pickup to use capacitance of the extra pot and capacitor to add thickness to the sound. (Diagram Pending)