Brian May Red Special Guitar: Jeanrenaud Switch Full Replication by dsgb

Brian May Red Special Guitar: Jeanrenaud Switch Full Replication

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.

Thanks to fellow Brian May Red Special enthusiast, Julian Hemingway for providing information on his Jeanrenaud switch, helpful discussions and ideas and for evaluating my components.

Video Chapter Time Indexes

00:00 - Introduction.
00:35 - Montage of thumbnails of my other YouTube videos.
01:05 - Examination of the exterior detail of a vintage Jeanrenaud DPDT parallel slide switch.
01:31 - Brief history of the Jeanrenaud company started by Swiss Henri Jeanrenaud in Dole, France.
02:05 - Looking under the hood of my home made Brian May Red Special guitar.
02:32 - Why the Jeanrenaud switch is key to achieving the correct aesthetic appearance of the original Red Special.
03:13 - The Guyton Time Warp Red Special replicas.
03:44 - Disassembly of a vintage Jeanrenaud switch.
04:35 - Examination of the internal components of a vintage Jeanrenaud switch.
05:36 - 3D CAD representation of the component parts of a vintage Jeanrenaud switch.
06:12 - 3D FDM (Fusion Deposition Modelling) printing; the Prusa i3 MK3S+.
07:25 - 3D SLA (stereolithography) printing; the ELEGOO Mars 4 DLP printer.
08:21 - CNC milling the Tufnol phenolic resin wafers.
08:50 - CNC thicknessing the Tufnol phenolic resin wafers.
09:20 - CNC milling the metal chassis from 0.8 mm thick 5052 aluminium sheet.
09:54 - CNC milling the sliding contacts from 0.35 mm thick brass sheet.
10:19 - Preparing the 3D printer files for the plastic actuators in Lychee Slicer software.
11:29 - Batch of twelve actuators emerging from the 3D printer’s resin VAT.
11:38 - Examining a batch of twelve actuators after initial clean-up and before curing.
12:02 - Scraping the uncured actuators off the 3D printer’s build plate.
12:22 - Removing the bases and supports and cleaning with isopropyl alcohol.
12:45 - Curing the 3D printed actuators with a UV nail gel curing lamp.
13:39 - Examining Jeanrenaud brand vintage rotary multipole switches.
14:02 - Salvaging contacts from rotary switch wafers.
14:30 - Discussing the function of the detent wire.
15:08 - The custom detent wire bending jig (Delrin plastic).
15:29 - Manually forming the detent wire using the Delrin bending jig.
16:02 - Comparing the formed detent wire with the original component.
16:24 - Folding the aluminium chassis using a StewMac fret arbor press and a custom Delrin jig.
18:09 - Riveting the salvaged tinned copper contacts to the wafers using Keystone No. 24 wide roll PCB eyelets and a mini die and punch kit.
18:59 - Folding the brass sliders mounting tabs using a precision engineering bench vise.
19:23 - Inserting the brass sliders into the actuator bases by thermosetting.
19:43 - Reviewing the actuator sub-assembly.
19:56 - Inserting the detent wire.
20:02 - Sliding the actuator into the static contacts.
20:15 - Placing the metal chassis on top.
20:21 - Bending the mounting tabs on the metal chassis over.
20:47 - Outro 1: pictures of the set of six finished switches.
20:58 - Outro 2.

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