Dan Armstrong - Man & Guitars

However, by production time the aforementioned cap screws that Matt had used on the prototypes which threaded into the maple neck from the rear of the acrylic body had given way to ½" chrome-plated carriage bolts as seen in the upper left and right on my 1969 Dan Armstrong guitar.

At some point, Ampeg's supplier of chrome-plated carriage bolts seen at the top of this page had apparently ran out of stock in the size that was needed. Seen directly above, notice the ends of the left two carriage bolts, and how the bolts were hand cut instead of the factory machined ends. According to Dan the "neck bolts measured in at approximately 1^3/8" long but sometimes all that was available were longer ones, like 1^1/2" or longer. On those occassions we had to cut them to length."

Whether for better or worse, Matt understands the change, adding "screwing a 5/16" or 3/8" dia. bolt into wood, even if it's hard maple, eventually someone's gonna put too much force on it by whacking or dropping it and the threads in the wood will strip, or crack the wood. Also an extra production procedure would have been required to cut those threads into the wood. Hex nuts on the other side will surely work well, but they're kinda crude in my book; something much simpler, and not requiring two tools to do or undo, could easily have been worked out." Lastly, he added "Looking back in retrospect, I still think the matte-black cap screws looked a lot more elegant than the carriage bolts in my visual designer's eye, then and now."

But, the decision to use carriage bolts was final. As seen at right, holes were drilled through the acrylic body, and through the tongue of the maple neck. Larger diameter holes were countersunk into the wood of the tongue, just deep enough to allow the washers and nuts to reside flush with the top of the tongue of the neck. Everything is hidden underneath the scratchplate.

With the neck bolted onto the double cutaway body, this overall design allows the player to easily access the very last notes, or frets, of the 24-fret fingerboard. This method of attaching the maple neck to the acrylic body was truly a unique innovation for the time, and explains the popularity of the instrument among slide players, or anyone who wishes to easily access the upper registers of the 24 fret neck.

Many times a socket set is used to tighten the neck to the body. But as can be seen at left, care must be taken when tightening with one as it is too easy to over tighten the nuts which can result in cracking &/or splitting the acrylic body in and around the neck attachment area. If you are not sure of your skills, using a nut driver is a viable alternative as it can be used to tighten the bolts nuts as much as needed by hand which is usually enough. However, if you feel more tightning is required, try clamping a pair of vise-grip type pliers to the shaft of the nut driver to give it just a little bit more while still being safer then using a socket set.

As seen upper left, and according to Matt Umanov "When Danny asked me to design a truss rod cover, I was stumped, and when I told him that, he looked at the peghead, picked up a pencil, started drawing,and said something to the effect of 'Why not make it just a smaller version of the peghead shape?' "

As seen upper right, the truss rod cover itself is essentially a piece of the same Formica that is used to make the scratchplate and headstock veneer. As such, it blends seamlessly against the headstock using three chrome plated phillips screws.

High quality tuners were used throughout the production run of the Dan Armstrong instruments. The prototypes and earliest models employed Schaller tuners like the 1969 model shown above. Matt Umanov relates the story stating "I told Danny that the Schaller tuners were the best by far, which they were." Dan concurred, and stated "I like the look of the Schaller tuners on the clear instruments." Ironically, or prophetically - once these instruments entered the production stage - Dan & Ampeg turned to none other than Matt Umanov for these tuners.

Matt Umanov goes on to say "For quite some time I was the sole supplier of both the Schaller tuners and the Ivory blocks used to make the string nuts on these guitars. In fact, I was the only one in New York." For awhile, Matt sold a great deal of both these supplies to Ampeg, but went on to add "eventually the orders ceased and I assumed they had found another supplier."

On the upper right, and seen from the back side - notice how low the screw holes are that help secure the tuners to the headstock. In particular the bottom two tuners. This neck has the serial number A204D making it a very early model. Later models would see the tuners getting moved up a bit more.

However, fate would intervene somewhat as later models would be fitted with (the then) 'Patent Pending' Grover Rotomatic tuners as can be seen on the 1970 model guitar and bass seen above. This came about entirely by accident. At some point in late 1969 or early 1970 a large shipment of Dan Armstrong clear guitars were being held up at the factory as Schaller had sent them a large shipment of tuners that were missing the nuts & washers. A call was placed to Shaller, but the missing parts never seemed to arrive. Knowing that customers were waiting for their instruments, Dan said "One day I just walked across the street to the local Grover dealership and told them that we needed a lot of tuners, and that we would continue needing them. They provided us with them, and we just never returned to the Shallers."

But never is an awfully long time, and by 1971 instruments equipped with Schaller tuners began to trickle out of the factory and into players hands once again - as can be seen here in the photos above of a 1971 model. But must be remembered that the relationship between Dan and Ampeg was rapidly deteriorating at this point in time as a result of their disputes over amplifier royalties and Ampeg may have decided to just use what was readily available.

At the upper right, notice how the tuners are placed higher up on the headstock than on the 1969 model seen two rows up. In particular, notice how the mounting screws are not as close to the bottom of the headstock. The difference from my 1969 to my 1971 models reveals that the tuners are placed approximately 1/16th of an inch higher up on the headstock.

Both in 1969 and again in 1971 a few select instruments were equipped with split post Schaller tuners. There appears to be no rhyme or reason as to when they were employed and most likely it was either a matter of fulfilling a custom order or, more likely, and as mentioned earlier - a simple matter of using what was available.

The few bass players that received them welcomed the slotted style tuners seen above as many others complained that the bass was fitted with regular guitar type tuners. Although the tuners of the bass were all of the same high quality as the guitar model, the large size of the bass strings made it difficult for bassists to restring their instruments.

Large gauge strings required several wraps to be removed from the end of a bass string in order for it to fit into the holes on the bass tuners' string post. Unfortunately, this often resulted in players modifying their instruments by removing the stock tuners and installing a larger set.

But overall, the combination of Ivory nuts, Grover & Schaller tuners, CTS pots, Switchcraft jacks and Carling Technologies switches - along with brushed aluminum control knobs and chrome plated parts make for an impressive arsenal of hardware on any guitar. Five decades later they are still some the most desired materials used when building quality instruments - and stands as a lasting testament to the high quality standards that Dan & Matt used, and insisted on, throughout the production of these instruments.