Dearest brother James, Not for one moment did I say it WASN'T 'Purty" I just pointed out a couple of things that irked me about the design and description. But then again what would I know about Pick-up design anyway..?
Just a little about my involvement with pickup design:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birch_%28luthier%29 
Roy Orbison, Brian May, Tony Iommi, Dave Hill (Slade), Gerry Shephard(Glitter Band), all are/were using the pickups that were originally designed for Steel Guitar. By John Birch and myself.
Tony Iomi's guitar in the Times Square Hard Rock Cafe, Roy Orbison ' "Eagle" and many an Iconic guitar from the rock era was fitted with Superflux or Hyperflux pickups designed and pioneered by John and myself.
Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath came to Birch's shop after having his ideas rejected by the major guitar manufacturers of the time, such as Gibson and Fender. Iommi was looking for someone to make him a guitar with a 24 fret fingerboard and high power/low noise pickups. Iommi's red Gibson SG Special received some modification in the form of a re-covered Gibson P-90 in the bridge position and John Birch's own Superflux in the neck position. This guitar is in the Times Square Hard Rock Cafe. In 1975, Birch built Iommi his black 24-fret, cross inlay SG Special. This was the main guitar used on the albums Technical Ecstasy, Never Say Die, Heaven and Hell, and Mob Rules. This guitar is now in the Miami Hard Rock Cafe. Around the same time Birch's SG was built, John Diggins also built Iommi's Jaydee SG, which features a custom wound pickup by Diggins in the bridge position and a standard Biflux in the neck position. The guitar also has peeled and cracked paint due to a rushed finish job. During the Cross Purposes tour, the guitar was left in a hot car on a date in Brazil, and the finish bubbled and cracked due to the heat. This guitar was first used for some overdubbing on Heaven and Hell, but quickly became Iommi's main guitar. The Birch shop also built a guitar for Tony that featured the ability to remove and replace pickups. The pickups plugged through the back into slots which had quick connectors that allowed them to be pulled and replaced easily, and didn't require any soldering. This allowed for more tonal options than any standard guitar, no matter how complex its wiring. Geezer Butler also had some basses made by Birch, one of which can be seen in the music video for Black Sabbath's "A Hard Road."
Another of Birch's famous customers was Brian May of Queen. Brian wanted a copy of his Red Special to use as a backup guitar, so he asked John to make him what would come to be referred to as the "Yellow Special." This is the guitar that was used on several videos from the album News of the World and the video for "We Will Rock You." May never liked the Yellow Special's sound or feel. The construction of the Birch guitar and his original Red Special are very different. May's Red Special is constructed of mahogany and oak with a frictionless roller bridge, whereas the Birch guitar used all maple construction with an ebony fingerboard, as well as a non-roller bridge which meant tuning was unstable. At a Chicago gig in the early eighties, he broke some strings on the Red Special. After using the Birch guitar for a few minutes, he tossed it offstage out of frustration, but no one was there to catch it. The guitar was smashed to pieces. Fortunately, all the pieces were saved, and the remains can be seen at Brian May's site (link at bottom). Until a few years ago, John Birch still offered a copy of the guitar featuring Dimarzio's Brian May pickups, but the model has been discontinued.
Roy Orbison also ordered a guitar from Birch. In 1975, Orbison's guitarist, Allen Panter was having problems with his Les Paul. Orbison was also having difficulty with his Ovation, and needed it to be repaired. Orbison was satisfied with the work done, and decided to have a custom guitar built. Orbison, Birch, and Birch employee John Diggins all had discussions on what Roy would like to have built. The Eagle guitar was born, and it can be seen at Jaydee's website (link at bottom) while the actual guitar hung on the wall at Birmingham Hard Rock Cafe until its closure in 2006.
Dave Hill of Slade has used John Birch guitars since the mid seventies. Among the many modified Gibsons and John Birch originals Hill used throughout the 1970s and 1980s were a J1 style maple guitar featuring Hyperflux pickups and, of course, the famous Super Yob guitar, which is styled after a Sci-Fi ray gun. Hill has said he didn't really like using the Super Yob due to its neck heavy nature, its poor sound, and terribly high action. Hill then had a copy built for him by Framus. Recently, the new John Birch company released a 50 guitar run of the new version that features LED lights in the neck inlays.
The Glitter Band's glitter covered star shaped guitar was built, according to Gerry Shephard, by John Birch in mid-1975 for the release of Gary Glitter's "Love in the Sun. He also repaired Shephard's old gold colored star guitar, which had been damaged at a show by some overzealous fans. The cost of the new guitar was £400. The guitar received more damage over the years, but was fully repaired in 1996 by Ray Cooper. The guitar was used mostly by Gerry Shephard, and retired with him in 2002. He build a reversed Stratocaster model with two JB pickups and hollow fret caveties for Ritchie Blackmore.
Birch also built the Rook guitar for Rook Music, which can be seen, along with Framus's copy of the Super Yob, in Tony Bacon's The Ultimate Guitar Book. The Rook guitar was designed to emulate a rook chesspiece, complete with a simulated brick texture made of cork and a front gate made of fretwire.
The last guitar that John Birch himself worked on was a replica of the Birch bass used by Jim Lea of Slade, owned by Stu Rutter.
Colin Gibb, from ‘Black Lace’ who had been a great lover of ‘custom’ guitars, and a great admirer of John Birch guitars (having borrowed one for the ‘Superman’ video) commissioned the company to build an 8-String bass, in 2001. The instrument was based on what Fender ‘may’ have produced, if they ever made an 8-String, in the 60’s, Having a ‘Hockey stick’ headstock (similar to the Fender electric 12 string), and chrome control plate (as on the bass V1) but being mainly designed around the Fender Precision Bass.
QED
by SWALLOW » Tue Feb 07, 2012 7:58 pm 
