History & Significance
1966 Brian May Custom “Red Special”
• The ‘Red Special’ guitar was designed and built by 16yr old Brian May and his dad Harold between 1964-1966 and is one of the most extraordinary, innovative and creatively complete electric guitars ever built
• Chambered Oak (from an 18th century mantel) body, Mahogany veneer top & back, Rustins Plastic Coating
• 24” scale, Oak neck, Rustins Plastic Coating, 24 frets, 1 7/8” nut
• Painted Oak fingerboard, 5th fret dot replaced with a new mother of pearl dot which Greg handshaped using the same tool and method that Brian used to make the original fingerboard dots from his Mum’s pearl buttons
• White fingerboard side dots and longitudinal stripes were originally painted onto the Red Special’s neck, but we realised because these were painted on top of the Rustins Plastic Coating that they would disappear as soon as we started sanding the surface for overcoating with fresh Rustins
• Gotoh locking heads which were fitted sometime in the 1980s, replaced by new Schaller locking tuning heads during the refurb, White pearloid oval shaped plastic buttons were adapted to obtain a similar look to the original tuning heads’ white buttons.
• Tremolo arm and spring: the spring came from a 1928 Panther motorcycle inner valve spring, the arm from Brian’s bicycle saddle bag holder and the tremolo arm tip was fashioned from one of Mrs May’s knitting needles. The bronze bush was silver soldered by Brian and Harold onto the steel chrome plated arm. Tremolo bolts and springs: the 2 Panther 1928 motorcycle inner valve springs give Brian and Harold’s unique design a superior ‘feel’ to any other tremolo system in the world
• The Red Special uses 3 Burns Trisonic pickups that were refurbished and then reassembled with materials such as 0.5mm rubber to dampen microphonic feedback and finally the whole pickup with cover attached was soaked for 45 mins in a parrafin wax solution for further feedback reduction.
○ Bridge pickup: 7.02K 2.202H magnet: North approx 620-640 gauss
○ Middle pickup: 7.44K 2.326H magnet: South approx 700-740 gauss
○ Neck pickup: 6.96K 1.620H Magnet: North approx 500-570 gauss. There is no steel baseplate on the Neck pickup and this alters the inductance and the tonal makeup produced by the neck pickup.
• To put it simply, the ‘Red Special’ is a work of genius which addresses many design issues such as the tremolo tailpiece/bridge system and headstock design far better than any of the other very successful contemporary guitars of the time (think Fender Stratocaster, Gibson SG & Les Paul etc). The unique beautiful flowing lines of the Red Special’s body and neck have few equals and are on a par with the greatest electric guitars ever designed such as the Fender Stratocaster and Gibson Les Paul.
• And since the 1960s due to Brian’s equally extraordinary playing, the ‘Red Special’ has become one of the rock guitar world’s great icons.
• In 1998 Greg Fryer refurbished the original guitar and made 3 additional backup replicas. Brian gave the 3 backup guitars names to help personify and distinguish them from each other, and to add a touch of wry good humor as well. The guitars became known as ‘John’, ‘Paul’ and ‘George Burns’. Greg kept ‘Paul’, whilst ‘John’ became Brian’s main backup for the Red Special and ‘George Burns’ is Brian’s main dropped-D tuning guitar for songs like ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ etc.
Brian May
Reissues & Replicas
Mach Five Guitar
Image Descriptions
Associated Music
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