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. 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. 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.
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.
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