dsgb

Build guitars, modify guitars, collect guitars, play guitars

Tag: Andrew Guyton

The Guyton RS Transporter – Brian May’s Warm-Up Guitar

Posted by on

In my final YouTube video for 2024, we take a closer look at a unique and special Brian May Red Special guitar variant: the Guyton RS Transporter, a travel sized headless electric guitar with all the features of Brian May’s original Red Special. The guitar was designed by Martin Pitcher in 2014 because he travelled by air a lot and wanted a Red Special type guitar that could be easily transported in cabin baggage. Andrew Guyton produced a limited edition run of twenty five starting in 2016 and several had unique custom finishes and hardware customisation.

I own No. 9 of 25 which has a metallic purple finish and was originally commissioned by Craig Farley in 2017. The body is of chambered mahogany construction with an oak block embedded into the the rear of the body onto which the neck and bridge are mounted. The pickups are mounted onto pine ‘rails’ to mimic the original guitar’s pine blockboard construction. The neck is made of quarter sawn mahogany and crucially has the same thick profile of the original guitar. The fretboard is made of oak and is finished in black lacquer with 24 frets and a 24 inch scale.

The pickups are hand made Adeson Brian May specification Burns Tri-Sonics. The electrical harness was designed and built by Nigel Knight of Knight Audio Technologies and features a built in KAT treble booster that is switched in and out via the red button. The JCustom XS tremolo bridge is fitted with modified rollers, tremolo arm and spring to achieve a similar feel to Brian’s original design. It is supplied in a Hoffee custom carbon fibre hard case which fits in the standard overhead lockers of passenger aircraft.

U.K. Brian May Red Special Meet-up TVH 2023

Posted by on

Please check out my highlights package of the 2023 U.K. Brian May Red Special enthusiast meet-up on Saturday, 7th October 2023 and read the full report illustrated with 25 photographs here: https://dsgb.net/events/tvh2023/

Attended by 60-70 enthusiasts, the event has been held at Theale Village Hall near Reading in Berkshire since 2017. The theme of this year’s meet-up was “Good Company” which reflects the friendliness, trust and respect in the global Brian May enthusiast community.

To celebrate twenty years of working with Brian May, Andrew Guyton brought three guitars never seen or rarely seen in public: the spade, the 12/6 doubleneck and scalloped fretboard guitars. He also exhibited the “Badger” semi-acoustic and three customer guitars based on the original Red Special including Pete Malandrone’s semi-acoustic archtop and Nigel Knight’s heavily customised Ruby Special. These were all demonstrated by Luke Timmins, lead guitarist with the Supreme Queen tribute band using his KAT Brian May live rig.

Many other Red Special guitar variants were on display which had been made by amateur and professional luthiers in addition to custom guitar hardware and musical equipment including Deacy amplifier replicas and various Vox AC30 amplifiers.

Brian May Guitar Pickguard Inlays – MayStar and Badger

Posted by on

My latest YouTube video covers designing, CNC cutting and inlaying the two mother of pearl motifs on the pickguards of Brian May’s famous Red Special guitar and his arch top semi-acoustic guitar made by Andrew Guyton of Guyton guitars. I demonstrate the process of gluing them into 2″ diameter black acrylic discs using black cyanoacrylate superglue. Duration is 7m 20s.

Brian May Red Special Meet-up TVH 2021

Posted by on

The annual meet-up for enthusiasts of Brian May’s music and equipment was once again held at Theale Village Hall near Reading in Berkshire, U.K. on Saturday, 8th October 2021. The organiser, Jon Underhill, assisted by several other co-ordinators this year helped grow the event by increasing the numbers attending and stage-managing a series of talks and demonstrations. These included Martin Pitcher covering Brian’s Starlicks set-up, talks by Arielle and Queen’s Sound Engineer Justin Shirley-Smith and a 25th birthday present by Andy Guyton to Luke Timmins of his Guyton Time Warp Red Special. A raffle for some superb donated items including a KAT BM Mini Rig and a KAT Groundbreaker raised £530 for the Save Me trust. Click the link below to see additional content on the events section:

Red Special Meet-up TVH 2021