Odessa Guitars

This guitar holds a special place in my collection. Right now it's the only Odessa electric guitar that I've ever been able to find. I've found a few low end acoustics but never any electrics. It's a bolt on guitar made in China and I'm guessing it was late 70's but that's a pure guess.

This guitar was a pawn shop rescue that cost me $150.00 and inside the case was a brand new Boss Heavy Metal pedal that had never been used. I sold it for $100.00! I used that money to make this guitar what I wanted! It was pure stock garbage hardware when I got it and I was just getting into modding guitars.

First I added the genuine Gibson tuners. Then, I replaced the pickups with Seymour Duncan Distortions. Once that was done, I wrapped them in Genuine Gibson pickup covers. Soon came the WD chrome pickguard and StewMac Chrome covers. When I started this build the aftermarket market wasn't what it is today so I had to compromise a lot. I couldn't find LP chrome rings so I had to stack rings to get the right height. It's still like that today! I finally went crazy and swapped those bulky black knobs with Fender Dome knobs, got rid of the plastic jack plate and got a metal one and then got the Les Trem tremolo and a schallar roller bridge. To stop tuning issues I got a graphite nut for it.

One day when playing it one of the plastic MOP inlays popped out. So, I had a buddy cut me new ones out of aluminum and I replaced all of the inlays and filed them to match the radius with a flat file and buffed them with a Dremil.

The last part was ordering the chrome tip for the switch. That proved harder then expected but not as hard as it was to replace that plastic bass/treble washer under the switch. I ended up going to a Harley shop and got a chrome fender washer which fit the bill nicely.

The guitar was finally done and I played it exclusively for years. This is just one of the few guitars that I would never sell. I'd still love to find out more about the company that built it and if anyone has another one out there is good shape I'd love to mod another one in gold and black, just for laughs!