Dan Armstrong - Man & Guitars

By 1970 the Dan Armstrong · Ampeg bass had settled in with more overall consistency, thus becoming the model that we all know today. As seen above left and right, gone is the chrome plated pickup plate that Dan once used to secure the pickup in place.

At left, another change that remained consistent - not only on the bass but across the entire Dan Armstrong line, and that was the switch from straight slotted screws to phillips type screws - used to secure the tailpiece to the body. Dan himself told me that the phillips type were much better for production purposes, with less slippage of tools and less scarring of the acrylic body as a result.

At right, another practice that apparently ceased even before the end of 1969 was the application of tin foil on the bottom side of the scratchplate. I never got around to asking Dan about it and as such can only speculate that without shielding the entire pickup and control cavity as well, that it did little to no good, and only increased production costs and was discontinued.

At left, and with few exceptions, the surface of the scratchplates and headstock veneers would no longer feature a smooth, glossy finish, but rather a textured matte-finish as the supplier of this material had changed it. As seen here, by mid to late 1970 The Dan Armstrong instruments came into players hands with a section of the tailpiece sandblasted. Dan said that some players were experiencing slippage problems as the rosewood saddle would slide around on the 'all chrome' tailpiece so he had that portion of the tailpiece sandblasted.

At right, and seen from the back I cannot tell if it's just the angle of the photo or if a past owner installed a rigid tin (not foil) shield on the underside of the scratchplate, but I would guess the latter. Notice too how easily you can make out the pickups 3-lug electrical connection. Back to the left photo, and seen better in enlarged view, notice that the 'A' string does not appear to be anchored into the tailpiece very well

At left, one thing common to all Dan Armstrong models is that the brown resin that the pickup is encased in. Unfortunately, and as can be seen here, and on most of the basses on this page, this resin tends to break off in and around the bar pole piece where it's at its weakest i.e. thinnest and one can thus see the white plastic that makes up the bobbin for the top coil of the bass pickup. In fact, if you go back up two photos it would appear that an owner took a knife or razor to his pickup as a great amount of the bobbin is showing as well as the fact that the chipping and peeling of the resin seldom does so in such equal and straight horizontal lines as these.

At right, another thing that, by this point in time is also consistent, is that every bass body is now machined to utilize the pickup screw like the guitar models. Equally consistent are the thumb rests - which by this time have moved forward more and are now centered on the top portion of the scratchplate.

As seen at left, by 1970 most, if not all of the Dan Armstrong instruments being produced were leaving the factory with Grover 'Patent Pending' tuners on them. This would be a change from the year prior where they were then equipped with Schaller tuners as seen at right. The change is covered in the Hardware section of this site, but by 1970 Grovers would be the stock tuners. It would take another year or so before Schallers were seen back on these instruments.