Uploaded November 2024 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago
In May 2022 I published a YouTube video about the original pickups that Brian May made and fitted to his Red Special guitar. Following his original 1962 design sketch as a guide for the dimensions, materials and general construction, I assembled and wound my own versions of these pickups.
youtube.com/watch?v=NtVDcheIzBE
Since making the original video, I have found out more information about them, including their electromagnetic characteristics and some people have asked me about what they sound like and about making functional sets. Julian Hemingway has made a replica Red Special to Brian's original specification and he brought it to the U.K. Red Special enthusiast meet-ups in 2022 and 2024. Although we were hoping to hear it being played through a full Brian May stage rig, instead Julian got the opportunity to present it to Brian and discuss it for a few minutes. I took some loose components to display alongside his guitar. Check out those videos here:
youtube.com/watch?v=pA2MjToZs8c
youtube.com/watch?v=HgS0gWxLkrI
In this video, I update you about the additional work Julian and I have been doing to better understand Brian's original home made Eclipse magnet pickups and how to approach making usable replica sets.
Julian Hemingway demonstrates his Red Special guitar illustrated on the video thumbnail and at various points in this video on his own channel in a video published 10 November 2016:
youtube.com/watch?v=SQz9R4E7wdE
To re-cap, I originally interpreted Brian's design with bases made from 1/8" thick phenolic resin sheet, captive 6BA brass nuts to mount the Eclipse magnets, flush inset tinned brass solder tags and a 1/16" thick top cover milled from white acrylic sheet. I filled the voids between the magnets with custom made acrylic inserts. I then wound 6,000 turns of 44 AWG (0.05 mm diameter) enamelled copper wire onto a thin cardboard strip. My overall goal was to produce a modern interpretation of this pickup with the DC resistance and inductance equivalent to a typical vintage Burns Tri-Sonic pickup.
I wound the pickups using my CNC machine to traverse the wire feed nozzle and the AC variable frequency milling spindle to rotate the pickup on an acrylic backing plate. The only additional piece of equipment I bought for this set-up was a magnetic tensioner.
Ade Turner of Adeson made several sets of these pickups for the Red Special replica that Andrew Guyton made in 2018 to Brian's original 1964 specification to celebrate his 70th birthday. This guitar was fitted with an ebony fretboard and a series/parallel changeover switch.
00:00 - Introductory montage.
01:06 - dsgb YouTube videos 20 second trailer.
01:28 - Recap of my May 2022 YouTube video.
02:11 - My Stepcraft 2/840 CNC machine based pickup winding apparatus.
02:31 - Brian and Harold May’s pickup winding apparatus.
02:45 - Guyton Guitars’ 2018 Brian May Eclipse Red Special replica.
03:03 - Brian’s original Eclipse magnet pickups heights discussion.
03:20 - CAD render sequences illustrating the pickup height differences.
04:13 - Eclipse pickup construction (a): white formica and acrylic top covers.
04:47 - Eclipse pickup construction (b): paxolin phenolic resin sheet base variants.
05:24 - Eclipse pickup construction (c): 3D printed plastic bobbin.
06:31 - Coil winding process sequences set to background music “New Day” by JHS Pedals.
09:39 - Examination of the three stages of post-winding assembly.
10:58 - Using modern high field strength neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnets to repolarise the Eclipse magnets.
12:12 - Making off the coil wire ends to solder tags.
13:13 - Making off the coil wire ends to hookup wires.
13:42 - Measuring the DC resistance and inductance of the three assembled pickups with a Peak Atlas LCR45 meter.
14:24 - Outro.
Please check out my other YouTube videos and my website, dsgb.net for further details of all my guitar and amplifier build and modification projects and information on Brian May’s guitars and musical equipment.
Photograph credits under the Fair Usage Policy to Julian Hemingway, Andrew Guyton, Brian May and Queen Productions. Some were downloaded from The Red Special official website which is administered by Simon Bradley. Simon is a lovely guy who supports our enthusiast meet-ups so please check it out and support him and Brian by buying a copy of the informative book: “Brian May’s Red Special: The Story of the Home-Made Guitar That Rocked Queen and The World”.
theredspecial.com
#BrianMay #RedSpecial #dsgb #BHMOHM
In May 2022 I published a YouTube video about the original pickups that Brian May made and fitted to his Red Special guitar. Following his original 1962 design sketch as a guide for the dimensions, materials and general construction, I assembled and wound my own versions of these pickups.
youtube.com/watch?v=NtVDcheIzBE
Since making the original video, I have found out more information about them, including their electromagnetic characteristics and some people have asked me about what they sound like and about making functional sets. Julian Hemingway has made a replica Red Special to Brian's original specification and he brought it to the U.K. Red Special enthusiast meet-ups in 2022 and 2024. Although we were hoping to hear it being played through a full Brian May stage rig, instead Julian got the opportunity to present it to Brian and discuss it for a few minutes. I took some loose components to display alongside his guitar. Check out those videos here:
youtube.com/watch?v=pA2MjToZs8c
youtube.com/watch?v=HgS0gWxLkrI
In this video, I update you about the additional work Julian and I have been doing to better understand Brian's original home made Eclipse magnet pickups and how to approach making usable replica sets.
Julian Hemingway demonstrates his Red Special guitar illustrated on the video thumbnail and at various points in this video on his own channel in a video published 10 November 2016:
youtube.com/watch?v=SQz9R4E7wdE
To re-cap, I originally interpreted Brian's design with bases made from 1/8" thick phenolic resin sheet, captive 6BA brass nuts to mount the Eclipse magnets, flush inset tinned brass solder tags and a 1/16" thick top cover milled from white acrylic sheet. I filled the voids between the magnets with custom made acrylic inserts. I then wound 6,000 turns of 44 AWG (0.05 mm diameter) enamelled copper wire onto a thin cardboard strip. My overall goal was to produce a modern interpretation of this pickup with the DC resistance and inductance equivalent to a typical vintage Burns Tri-Sonic pickup.
I wound the pickups using my CNC machine to traverse the wire feed nozzle and the AC variable frequency milling spindle to rotate the pickup on an acrylic backing plate. The only additional piece of equipment I bought for this set-up was a magnetic tensioner.
Ade Turner of Adeson made several sets of these pickups for the Red Special replica that Andrew Guyton made in 2018 to Brian's original 1964 specification to celebrate his 70th birthday. This guitar was fitted with an ebony fretboard and a series/parallel changeover switch.
00:00 - Introductory montage.
01:06 - dsgb YouTube videos 20 second trailer.
01:28 - Recap of my May 2022 YouTube video.
02:11 - My Stepcraft 2/840 CNC machine based pickup winding apparatus.
02:31 - Brian and Harold May’s pickup winding apparatus.
02:45 - Guyton Guitars’ 2018 Brian May Eclipse Red Special replica.
03:03 - Brian’s original Eclipse magnet pickups heights discussion.
03:20 - CAD render sequences illustrating the pickup height differences.
04:13 - Eclipse pickup construction (a): white formica and acrylic top covers.
04:47 - Eclipse pickup construction (b): paxolin phenolic resin sheet base variants.
05:24 - Eclipse pickup construction (c): 3D printed plastic bobbin.
06:31 - Coil winding process sequences set to background music “New Day” by JHS Pedals.
09:39 - Examination of the three stages of post-winding assembly.
10:58 - Using modern high field strength neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnets to repolarise the Eclipse magnets.
12:12 - Making off the coil wire ends to solder tags.
13:13 - Making off the coil wire ends to hookup wires.
13:42 - Measuring the DC resistance and inductance of the three assembled pickups with a Peak Atlas LCR45 meter.
14:24 - Outro.
Please check out my other YouTube videos and my website, dsgb.net for further details of all my guitar and amplifier build and modification projects and information on Brian May’s guitars and musical equipment.
Photograph credits under the Fair Usage Policy to Julian Hemingway, Andrew Guyton, Brian May and Queen Productions. Some were downloaded from The Red Special official website which is administered by Simon Bradley. Simon is a lovely guy who supports our enthusiast meet-ups so please check it out and support him and Brian by buying a copy of the informative book: “Brian May’s Red Special: The Story of the Home-Made Guitar That Rocked Queen and The World”.
theredspecial.com
#BrianMay #RedSpecial #dsgb #BHMOHM
