My latest YouTube video lasting 21 minutes covers the detailed design and fabrication of the three steel components in the knife-edge bearing tremolo system of Brian May’s Red Special guitar.
The tremolo (correctly the vibrato) system on Brian May’s Red Special guitar operates on the same principle (knife-edge bearing balanced by coil springs) as Fender’s 1954 patented two post floating tremolo. The main component is a vertical rocker block in which the strings are retained in a cowl. This pivots on a knife-edge bearing ground into a section of 1/8″ thick steel plate mounted horizontally flush with the top of the guitar body. String tension is counteracted by the compression force of two coil springs from a 1928 Panther motorcycle which abut the rocker block. The moving components are held in position with two 1/4″ hex head set screws which are anchored into a section of steel bar located between the upper and lower guitar body sections. Slots are milled into the set screws heads to allow spring tension to be adjusted by inserting a flat blade screwdriver through holes in the back of the guitar body.
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