4.52am Issue: 006 30th October 2016

think has a bit of a seventies look about it.
The small indent on the bottom edge
means that it will not slip off of your leg
when playing sitting down without a strap,
and the two strap buttons on the rear end
mean it can be left standing against an
amp without tipping over sideways and is
also “lefty ready”. As the guitar would need
to contain all the electronics and a battery
it seemed practical to include two sound
chambers and to have a glued in through
neck.”
From here he sent it all to Andrew Guyton,
but unfortunately timing was off, and the
project was shelved. Until, that was. early
in 2016, when Andrew emailed him back to
say,” This RS Transporter design is too
good a guitar not to be made, can we
collaborate on it?”
So, game on.
And what an amazing looking guitar they
produced. Bill & Ted apart, it is difficult to
produce any headless design without the
Steinberger name cropping up, but you
only have to look at the specification of the
RS Transporter to see that this is an
entirely different creature.
For Martin got his wish precisely, and
Andrew’s intimate knowledge of the Red
Special meant that he was able to
reproduce its structure precisely.
As Andrew explains,
“The RS Transporter has been built to be
as close as possible in construction and
materials to Brian May's own Red Special.
It features a quarter sawn Mahogany neck
with a black lacquered oak fingerboard. The
body is of chambered Mahogany
construction with an oak block embedded
into the rear of the body onto which the
neck and bridge are mounted. The pickups
are mounted onto pine 'rails' to mimic the
originals pine blockboard construction.
The pickups themselves are specially wound
and modified by Adeson pickups to recreate
the difference in Brian's original.
The electrical harness has been designed
and built by Nigel Knight of Knight Audio
Technologies, and the guitar features a
built-in KAT treble booster that is switched
in and out via the red button.
The JCustom XS tremolo bridge will be fitted
with modified rollers, tremolo arm and
spring to get closer to the feel and sound of
Brian's original design.”
So not just a travel guitar that looks like a
Red Special, but one that more than shares
its DNA and plays and sounds like one too.
And as this is a Guyton Guitar, Andrew
won’t be spending his life building them
either, no, there will be a strictly limited run
of 25 of these immaculate guitars produced
and when they are gone, they really are
gone.
Do check the videos out, then pay Guyton a
visit Here. This is genuinely something
special.