In this video, I take you through all the processes and techniques required to replicate the highly sought after and extremely rare and hard to find vintage Jeanrenaud DPDT (double pole double throw) parallel slide switches of the same type fitted to Brian May’s Red Special guitar.
In 2019, I collaborated with Andrew Guyton of Guyton Guitars and Tim Grocott to produce replicas of these switches for his limited edition run of high end, super authentic Time Warp Red Special guitars. These guitars were born out of demand created by the prop guitar he made for the movie Bohemian Rhapsody about Freddie Mercury’s time in Queen.
Firstly, I discuss why these switches are key to maintaining the correct aesthetic appearance of the iconic Red Special guitar. I disassemble a vintage donor switch provided by Manuel Angelini of DoxyWorld.com in Nantes, France and use the information to design the replica Tufnol wafer, metal chassis, plastic actuator, steel detent wire and brass sliding contacts in CAD.
I CNC cut the wafers from Tufnol phenolic resin sheet thicknessed to 1.6 mm. I also CNC cut the brass sliders from 0.35 mm brass sheet and the metal chassis from 0.8 mm thick 5052 grade aluminium sheet. I use 3D SLA (stereolithography) resin printing with an ELEGOO Mars 4 DLP printer and Phrozen brand ABS-like “creamy white” 3D printing resin to recreate the plastic actuators.
Please check out the collaborate section of my website for further details on this intricate and challenging build project:
https://dsgb.net/collaborate/jeanrenaud/
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