Thing is, Odyssey, Hondo, nor any other maker made a P-90 version of Paul Dean's "Dean Machine" guitar. But I have a Hondo Paul Dean II and luthiery skills....but do I really want to do one? Especially considering in the mid of making the body and neck, I was playing around with making a guiatr for a friend, and then another time making a second copy of the one I already have so I could keep the nice vintage Hondo at home.

The nucleus was getting a set of P-90s from the guitar shop in Santa Cruz - which I had toyed with putting P-90's in this build at that point, even making a 100% accurate clone (well, more like as close as I can get from YouTube videos) to copy the guitar. I'd actually got a useful e-mail for my other site from Paul Dean a year before regarding the info on the Hondos and that guitar. I kinda' thought, after mentioning it in a reply "what the hell am I doing, what if he did not like that" - and there were times I was tempted just to let these reclaimed wood builds go....but nah, I'm a bit of a persitant pursuer of these kinds of things. People should know that by now, lol.

So "To Paul Dean, or not to Paul Dean - that is the question" - because I had 3 other influences on guitar who also played P-90 axes at one time or another. There's Elliot Easton from The Cars who had a KILLER tone with a LP Junior on the first tour - and I could just buy a Epiphone body and neck and put a special like that together fast. There's Billy Squier who I knew played a special because of the album cover above, and I always dug the tone him and Jeff Golub got from their gear. Then I was going through a MAJOR "The Clash" phase and Mick Jones also kicks ass. But the thing is - NONE of those guys were playing anything worth all the effort - but PAul Dean had his own unique body design, and there's no Dean Machines running around besides the O.G. one above (maybe) with P-90s. Also....I had some wild ideas to kinda' lift it a little out of Loverboy territory and put some of my own marks on it already.

The idea, as it currently stands, is to build a 100% hand-made instrument from repurposed wood (if possible, at least everything but the fretboard), including the neck (this will be the first neck I will ever make). I want to eventually get self-sufficient as a luthier to put some original designs up for sale online that stand out, but I'm going to "road test" my own new features, some on guitars that I tend to prefer the design of. As of 2023, the Jaguar, Jag-Stang, Jazzmaster, Mustang, and (1982-1983) Odyssey Paul Dean designs are my favorites. This version has 2 Golden Age P-90 pickups, Anti-Scratch pickguard (one Paul's home built prototype did not have), and likely in a different color than his. I have not decided what finish I'm going to put on it, because I'm trying to avoid having too many guitars that are the same color. If you've noticed a trend, I'm a bit different from Dean in that I tend to make every build another color - I was thinking maybe purple, transparent denim blue (an original color I came up with), or maybe Sienna Sunburst. It will have a Leo Quan Badass bridge on it, but I'm hiding a Preamp in there too of my own design - the Pursuit Special Preamp (PSP - because I like confusing acronymes that make peopel think I'm talking about a PlayStation game system, lol) - which is there to drive the gain of the instrument up to an insane level, like EMGs. I'm also considering a FreeWay 6-way switch on this one to allow seriels/parallel/in-phase/out-of-phase wiring....it's just not CreepingNet to not have some kind of wacky, over-the-top electronics setup.

INitially the idea was to build my own clone of Paul's guitar from the 1982 tour. This guitar was one HE built, and one of the first Odyssey/Hondo Prototypes before there even was a deal with either. When I was writting on my other site he e-mailed me and told me more about this guitar saying it sounded "sick" - as in cool I'm assuming because I have a few Loverboy bootlegs with this guitar on them and it's VERY MEAN sounding. It has a very nice, aggressive bite, and is what I would consider the quintessential "thick" sound of the "Get Lucky" album. I dunno if it was a dumb mistake mentioning this project in e-mail as it was, probably was, maybe not ~ I dunno.

But as I started diving in the design started to take on a life of it's own and lead me in some pretty odd directions. First off, my planer was f***ed up, so the boards for the body, made out of cross-braces from a disassembled cargo pallet, so the edges wound up not square....this lead to a CRAZY but very cool looking accident - the body wound up being convex in the front, bellowing out, and concave in the back, making it look like it'd been cross pollinated with a Warwick or Spector NS Series guitar. This is actually cool because that's what Kenneth "Spyder" Sinnaeve plays, as well as Loverboy's original bassist Scott Smith used to play in the same time period (Spyder and Scott both had Warwicks and Spectors). Before cutting out the body, I gave it some time to bother me - like I do - but I found, this could turn out REALLY cool.

When I cut out the body, the curved top design turned out to be a real blessing in disguise, as I have not even cut the belly and arm contours, and the body is already VERY comfortable. Once all the contours are in and rounded over, this might become a new favorite. The shape is based on the Hondo Paul Dean II, with me going light with the sander in some spots to keep the horns a hair or two thicker like Paul's prototype, but keeping some of the neck stability reinforcement wood that was added to the Hondo model to make it just a hair more solid. Right now the body is sanded and put together and awaiting routing.

While in Santa Cruz on my Wedding Anniversary me and the wife went to a music store there, and bought a pair of P-90 pickups, Golden Age models, 8.9K (hot), just right for this guitar, with cream covers. Which is leaving me guessing what color I should paint the guitar. I'm still jumping around. I already have a RED Paul Dean. But this guitar is only playing Loverboy at home or in a covers situation, in the studio and 90% of it's live life, it's going to be doing original music, just like my red one has been for about 12 years now. For Electronics, I might mess with using a FreeWay Switch with it to get a bunch of different options on tap beyond the regular 3 (ie Series, Off, out-of-phase). I've got to do something of my own, and crazy with the electronics, that's my hallmark.

So right now, I'm playing with various color schemes in my mind. One idea was to try out some of that color changing paint, like an old flip-flop finish, since I'm seeing this stuff for sale at hobby shops and whatnot. But then I've also been toying with maybe a Jade Green like my old Yamaha which would go well with the cream pickups and white pickguard. Another color I don't have is Purple, but if I d that I'll want to put on black or chrome covers. Blue/Green Flip Flop would be cool with a smoke colored pickguard and rear routing, but so would Transparent Denim with a white pickguard (a color I came up with using Acrylic Paints, I could even do a flametop on it with a veneer). So that's a big part. The Denim and Jade colors could be done with a new white anti-scratch pickguard material.

Also, the NECK is in planning. I'm going to (kinda sorta) reproduce what Paul Dean did and Odyssey/Hondo originally did - 3 piece, maple board, resonance slots, headstock tilt - the whole 9 yards. But I am making some small alterations. The truss rod will be bi-directional for starters. The next change is I will likely be using Kluson Revoluton machine heads with split shafts, those are my favorites, so no prickly bits on the headstock. The logo won't have Paul's name on it for obvious reasons, instead sayingn "CreepingNet PDX90" or "CreepingNet StrikeZone PDX90" on there. I'm also toying with experimenting witth a smooth transition heel for the neck that makes upper fret access more comfortable for someone with smaller hands. Also, I'm tempted to put on a 24 Fret fretboard.... I don't have a lot of dual octave guitars in my stable.

My centerline is the center of the two centermost boards. The Truss Rod will follow that line, the Resonance slots will follow the sides. I'll be using a Spoke Adjust double-action Truss Rod with heel end adjustment, and likely will be using a darker fretboard material so it looks a little different from my Hondo Paul Dean II.

The next part will be cutting the headstock shape, then beveling it to the 10 degree tilt I want from the top first. This is so the neck is thin enough for me to cut through it with my jigsaw to do the final thickness/shaping once the truss rod, resonance slots, and fretboard are all together and done.

First I had to cut the headstock out using a jigsaw before the angled headstock could be milled using a planer. This was fairly easy. I decided to take some liberties on the headstock because I'm not doing this as an outright copy of the famous red/black "Loverboy" guitar, but rather, making it my first P-90 axe, and it needs some tweaks to make it a little my own. The degrees are slightly less than 10 of headstock tilt but it seems very close to what my Hondo has. The shape is CLOSE, but a little different. It seems to me, Hondo had THREE Headstock variations on their Paul Dean line: an earlier one that was 100% like those found on the Odyssey, another run where the end of the headstock is shaped more like the end of a Samurai sword with the edges rounded off, and then a last one which was the standard Hondo non-tilt headstock (assumed no resonance slots either). What I did, was made a more "modern" style shape that's got some of the original lines in it, including the Telecaster-style buldge at the bottom, but the top is made a little shorter, and flatter. I am going to use standard Kluson tuner spacing on this (as I'll be using H-Mount or F-Mount Kluson Revolutions on it - my favorite machine heads - with split shafts, of course).

After the degree tilt was done with the planer, I started work on making the thickness the same throughout. The thickness of the headstock is roughly the same of your average Fender guitar. I believe it was 5/8" or 7/16". This was achived by STARTING it with a Jigsaw with a course bit and some speed (I had it on 3), and then using my sanding drum to flatten out the back and make it the same thickness on both sides. It now looks absolutley perfect, but left a nice, wide, flat, surface to work off of for the proper neck.

The next piece I did some work on, was laying out where the truss rod routing is, where the end of the neck will be, and the resonance slots. I think how I'm doing this is I'm going to bolt a straight jig to my router, and then route the truss rod first, then the resonance slots. The center of the 4 boards is the "centerline", and the two just outside that are for the resonance slots.

I also setup where the squared off Tele-style neck heel is going (I'm going with a heel similar to Paul's original design). However, I'm also removing as LITTLE wood as I can get away with. The truss rod is going to be put together in such a way to allow me to have a nice bit of "meat" for the spoke nut to grab onto, and embed the truss-rod into the structure for extra support - needed with those resonance slots. The rod is bi-directional, so I think I MIGHT need to get the rod before I can determine if I need a headstock adjustment as well.

The Resonance slots stop right near where the heel-block is for the neck. This allows me to keep the heel wide-open for having some anchor bolts and other stuff installed in it (basically, I'm copying some of the ideas from the Sweetheart guitars too, but my own version possibly). This means I MIGHT be pre-drilling for screws/bolts before I put the neck together, which means, I may need to pivot to focus on the body next (final shaping, routing, and whatnot) so I can get the neck bolts EXACTLY right for this kind of operation.

I've also done some Electronics Research - for a pickup selector, I'm going with the FreeWay 3x3-08 switch. This will be PERFECT for P-90s. The reason I'm doing this is to abstract this specific guitar from the "strictly Loverboy inspired" thing, and add some of my own custom flare to it electronically - but make it not at all obvious. Basically, she's getting a little "Fender Mustang DNA" and some "Johnny Marr Jaguar DNA" Because the switch settings are.....

A later project on this guitar might be a Leo-Quan compatible/Stoptail compatible variation on the Schaller 1401 tremolo, since they don't make it anymore. I've been half tempted to make something like that that's a halfway-home between a VegaTrem and the old 1401....maybe even make it Transposing capable like a Steinberger (by varying the length behind the tailpiece and making that adjustable)..so It could look like a reverse "harp" style stoptail with a whammy bar. But that's being put on ice for now.

	This would be a very light bit of that "Acrylic Blue" powder paint like I used on the MadRite guitar at one point...except a little lighter. Funny, and somewhat fittingly, I call this "Denim Brigade Blue" (sort of a tongue in cheek lyric from the Loverboy song "Steal the Thunder") since it looks a bit like acid-washed denim color in my favorite shade. I'm toying with pearloid as apickguard color, or white "haircell plastic" - sort of a change of color from the original black color (black would wear better though). So yeah, lots of ideas to play around with here.
	Transparent Medium blue, closer to the MadRite build's second paintjob in color, but playing with a black haircell "anti-scratch" pickguard and black or chrome covers for the P-90s. You'll notice I tend to favor "Blue" a lot, or "Green", or any combo of the two. I'm sticking hard with this, because one - my wife is tired of the color Red (and I've had a lot of Red guitars), and the OTHER Paul Dean guitar I have is RED - so I always try to make the next iteration of something I already have, in something nearly the opposite color. This might be kinda' cool.
	This is pretty much the quintessential "CreepingNet" color for guitars - some form of Turquoise. The wood on the body looks so nice though, that it'd be cool to see if I could setup a transparent turquoise color. Might have to bleach the wood to do that though....so not sure I want to. But it looks cool. I tend to like "Black" colored stuff on my guitars. Though stark white could be cool too. So yeah, going to continue playing with color schemes before I build the pickguard.

The neck is coming along. I don't know if I've mentioned it or not on this page, but this is my VERY first full-scale guitar neck I have ever built, and if I'm successful with this, I shall have no problems spending $15 on enough mahogany/maple for 3-5 necks (guitar and bass) and making my own necks from this point forward. Granted, this will likely be the only one with Resonance slots in it (because that's a very Paul Dean specific feature), others if they have 3 slots I'm reinforcing with graphite. It also will be nice because I can start making a LOT more options for 24" scale necks (ie 24" scale, 24 frets, and headless....a headless offset sounds really cool). That said, I'm using hand chisels to clean up the truss rod slot and the resonance slots - I want them perfectly straight (did not have a jig at the time of making the neck - working one out now). However, the truss rod is exactly the right depth, and exactly the right length. After this, the rosewood fretboard I order is in (yes, I'm using Rosewood, for a little extra reinforcement, and so that I can differentiate it from my Red Hondo just a little more).

Today I did the second coats of Behr and did some sanding to 320 grit to flatten out the finish, and it worked great, except, some finish prep was not, uh, prep enough....so I filled in the sanded through spots with Crayola Ocean Blast marker, and then put the Behr over that, and it resulted in some spreading and created a DEEPER stain than I had prior, leading to some cool effects, including some dark spots on the bass side that look like those "pipes" graphic found on those old circa 1981-1983 Kramer Pacer guitars. Hopefully soon I can have the neck done, then we can focus on getting the electronics, bridge, and pickguard together. I'm thinking I'm going to need to copy my red Hondo's pickguard for this, in white haircell plastic. One sheet I have is a hair off-white so it will give this guitar a vintagey look, which is what I'm going for....something kind of between BIlly Squier, Rick Nielsen, and Paul Dean....a little vintage, a little 80's, a little modern, all rolled into one guitar. The other plan is to make sure I can install a Schaller 4201 whammy on it if I come across one at a reasonable price in the future.

So the next bits will be fretboard, shaping the neck, clearcoating the back (maybe re-filling some spots after a flat-sand in some spaces), and getting the pickguard ready - after that comes the electronics.

So the re-rundown is this. I glued 4 pieces of the hardest reclaimed pallet-wood together after planing them as flat as I could get them - sideways. Then I cut the 10-degree-ish tilt into the headstock, and then cut the headstock back out, drilled tuner holes. After that was done, I tried making my own fretboard and got REALLY close, except the frets were a little...er...off. I might refill and re-use that board on something (fretless H804 maybe?). So I ordered a new rosewood 24 fret 24.75" scale fretboard (which came with binding which I did not use...I might have another use for that binding later on something else) with dot inlays. Cut that to size, glued it in place after epoxy-resin-ing the truss rod in plsace (a bi-directional, spoke adjust, sealed in it's own jacket so adhesives are fine). Cut the spoke adjust notch at the end after the 22nd fret, and then came what was done this time.

First, the neck was cut to thickness (very roughly) from the side with my jigsaw with a very coarse bit. It got a little low on ONE side, but not too bad not to recover from it. I then proceeded to shape the neck using a 60 grit sanding drum and using my eyes (that are somehow able to see in millimeters or less), managed to flatten the sides to the fretboard without eating into the fretboard, and then come to profile the neck to be something rather close to my Hondo Paul Dean II Guitar, then hand sanded.

Only mistakes in the shaping process made were getting through to one of the resonant slots just slightly, which I should be able to refill with a thin veneer and some wood glue, and then sand flat, and the aformentioned neck heel which ended up being PERFECT to the guitar's geometry in the end anyway. What I'm going to have in the end is one thin, fast, lathe, lightweight, and sturdy Paul Dean clone. Trying to bend the neck over my leg, there's so little flex it's not even visible - it's VERY sturdy. If it's about the same as the Hondo, neck relief should be so straight this guitar should have VERY low action - fretwork pending. Thing is, the neck was already singing a little with my hand tools and has a nice resonance, so those slots should do their job.

The next plans are to do all the final shaping, sanding, and finishing on the guitar, and then, we'll start ordering parts. I'm going again with a Leo Quan Badass Bridge, but the tuners will be split shaft Kluson Revolutions...so no pokey bits. The most expensive part of this will probably be the pickup selector though, because I'm planning for this to be the first guitar to have a Free-Way Selector switch...so I get neck, neck+middle, bridge, neck+middle out of phase, Series, and whatever else I can eek out of the switch. It MAY later get a home-built Sustainer Stealth system of my own as well.