Dan bought around 600 to 800 Danelectro U^® series guitar and bass bodies as well as necks for a production run of his own. As can be seen above left, Dan's modified line feature somewhat different shaped bodies than the original Danelectro stocking models of which one can be seen at the above right. Dan's new bodies now sport a different cutaway shape, giving it a traditional 1950's type look to it. Although hard to make out, you may notice the Silvertone^® brand name at the very top of the headstock on the original Danelectro model. Also notice that this particular instrument only has 18 frets on it, whereas Dan's models employed 21 frets on the guitar and 24 frets on the basses.

The bodies were made of a piece of 3/8" Masonite^® that was attached to a Popular or Pine frame body which were bound around the sides with Toylex, usually in white as seen above. Notice the chipping in the finish on this model.

These instruments also feature a slightly different shaped headstock than the stocking Danelectro guitars - again, somewhat reminiscent of a 1950's style shape. The headstocks were blank and did not feature the usual Danelectro or Silvertone silkscreen. They were however fitted with inline Kluson^® deluxe tuners exactly like the kind found on vintage Fender Stratocaster^® guitars which can be seen above.

Even the bass models employ the inline Kluson deluxe tuners. Unfortunately, and like the Dan Armstrong acrylic basses that would soon follow behind it, many bass players changed out these tuners as it was too inconvenient to change strings as wraps would have to be unwound in order for a bass string to be able to fit into the tuner post holes.

As seen above left, Dan Armstrong introduced the brass nut to the world on these instruments. Notice though that there is no truss rod cover on the headstock as these instruments only had non-adjustable steel truss rods. The necks were made of Popular with Brazilian rosewood fingerboards and dot position markers.

At upper right and seen circled in yellow - Dan incorporated the micro tilt adjustment screw which allows the angle of the neck relative to the body to be changed without totally removing the neck. In the past, for one to accomplish this task you would have to remove the neck from the body, then add (or remove) a small shim, then put everything back together again. If the shim was too thin, or thick, it would be necessary to start this process all over again until the proper angle was reached.

With this micro tilt adjusting screw one just loosens the screws that secure the neck to the body a bit, then make an adjustment to the micro screw - then tighten everything back down. If the desired angle is wrong it's an easy matter to re-adjust quickly. Fender^® would come to use this feature in the 1970's on their Telecaster^® and Stratocaster^® guitars. It's hard to know for certain who first came up with this as virtually everyone seems to have taken credit for it at one time or another.

Notice the white sticker type label on the plastic cover over the control cavity. Any of these instruments that were sold through Ampeg had this sticker on them which features the Ampeg name on it.