[3] The name Red Special came from the reddish-brown colour the guitar attained after being stained and painted with numerous layers of Rustins Plastic Coating.

The body was made from blockboard (strips of softwood sandwiched between two plywood skins)[9] with oak inserts in the top and bottom layers sourced from an old table.

The magnet was turned over to change its polarity and the wires on the solder posts swapped (to mimic a reverse wound coil) which made his favoured pickup combination of bridge and middle in phase humbucking.

The tremolo system is made from an old hardened-steel knife-edge shaped into a V and two motorbike valve springs to counter the 79 pounds (36 kg) string tension.

The Birch was also used live as a back-up for the Red Special until it was destroyed by May in a fit of rage due to the tuning stability issues.

The Red Special was omitted from the video for "Princes of the Universe", in which May used a white Washburn RR11V (This guitar is often mistaken for a Jackson Rhoads).

[10] The first official copy of the Red Special was made by British luthier John Birch and was used as a back-up for live performances until it was accidentally destroyed by May during a concert in August 1982.

KZ Guitar Works manufactured the original Red Special Super model which was hand-made in Japan by master luthier Kazutaka Ijuin.

The guitars come in Antique Cherry (a similar color to that of the Red Special), White and 3-Tone Sunburst with chrome hardware.

[14][15][16] Fryer named his three replicas John, Paul and George Burns (after two members of The Beatles and the famous American comedian).

May has two of these guitars, John and George Burns; Fryer kept Paul for some years and used it for testing modified Vox AC30 amplifiers and his range of treble boosters until he sold it to a Japanese collector for an undisclosed sum.

While the woods used in John and Paul are more faithful to the original, George Burns was built with New Guinea rosewood[17] for a "more aggressive edge" tonally.

His green Guyton has replaced George Burns for Drop D tuning duties to play "Fat Bottomed Girls" live.

[19] In the 1970s, Japanese guitar manufacturer Greco was the first company to market a line of mass produced Red Special copies, albeit unofficial and unlicensed.

[28] In Germany Scheithauer Guitars makes a Red Special style replica called "Mayday" in Mühlhausen.

The "Standard" model featured a more common Strat-style 5-way pick-up selector switch, a longer scale neck, and a deeper headstock angle.

Fryer re-finished the neck and body in the original Rustin's Plastic Coating used in the creation over the existing finish, and fretboard wear was repaired and dot-markers replaced.

The restored Red Special is prominently featured during a series of video interviews with Guitarist in 1999, in which May also demonstrated its feedback capabilities.

[31] This work involved making good all the cracks in the Rustins Plastic Coating lacquer finish, repairing damage to the end and edge, and touching in of the fretboard and replacing one of the mother-of-pearl marker dots.