Dan Armstrong - Man & Guitars

Various web sites state that Dan replaced the lipstick pickups on these guitars with his own humbucking pickups - as can be seen above. According to Dan in the April 1993 issue of Vintage Guitar Magazine these guitars "had one pickup that was a humbucker made out of two lipsticks put together in a molded plastic sort of thing". meaning that he took two stock Danelectro 'lipstick' pickups, removed the coils from them, and tied them in series to make a humbucking pickup. Then, like the pickups on his acrylic instruments, he encased the coils. The result was a more powerful, sustaining pickup that was potted to keep it from having any feedback issues at higher volumes.

However, if you compare the pickup on the left with the one at right it soon becomes obvious that the one on the right has height adjustment screws, whereas the left one does not which seems to suggest that there were minor differences in the models that got turned out.

One of these minor differences was the pickup itself. As At upper left, some of the guitar models retained the original lipstick pickups in them. Why this is, when so many were equipped with humbuckers, is unknown and one can only speculate. Perhaps Dan wanted a few made with single-coil pickups, or maybe these were special order items. Whatever the case they do seem to exist.

As can be seen at upper right, the bass models also employed the lipstick style pickups in them. However, in an interview in the April 1993 issue of Vintage Guitar Magazine Dan mentioned that he had used "overwound lipstick units" on those basses - meaning that he essentially rewound the pickups and gave them more turns of wire over the stock Danelectro lipstick pickup. One can only assume that Dan felt the magnet of the original pickup was strong enough to support the additional turns of wire, and set about making a stronger pickup.

Normally on the bass models the pickup has a matching trim ring surrounding it, yet this one seems to be lacking such a trim ring and there does not seem to be any signs that there ever was one.

At left, a white humbucker can be seen. This is very rare and I cannot help but wonder if it is original to the instrument or not, especially given the addition of a Tuno-Matic style bridge seen at the bottom left of the photo. However it's equally possible that Dan used a different color resin, or 'plastic'.

One of the more obvious things these guitars featured is a clear pickguard with the words 'Dan Armstrong Modified Danelectro' that is silk screened onto the backside in white. These pickguards came in different configurations depending on which instrument they were attached to. The pickguard at left is shaped for a humbucking pickup and is much larger than the one for the single coil instrument above left, whereas the bass pickguard, seen above right, appears to be the size of the humbucker pickguard, but is routed slightly for the lipstick pickup (unlike the guitar model with the lipstick pickup).

As seen at left, A Dan Armstrong modified Danelectro bass featuring a lipstick pickup that has the usual matching metal trim ring around it and which stands in sharp contrast to the bass model seen just a few images above that has no such trim ring, nor any markings that there ever was one.

The 3-way toggle switch works just like the Dan Armstrong guitars - in the center position, it negates the tone control, leaving the pickup unaffected. In the other 2 positions, the tone knob is activated, with one position rolling off high frequencies, while the other position rolls off low frequencies.

Another one of the things Dan did over the years to these instruments was to replace the stacked potentiometers with single volume and tone pots - as can be seen in the guitar model (above left) and the bass model (above right). In addition, he also changed out the tone capicator. On the guitar model, and seen better in the enlarged view, you can clearly make out a .02 mfd capacitor while on the bass model a .1 mfd capicator can be made out in enlarged view.