Dan Armstrong - Man & Guitars

Another question that I get a lot from readers is in regard to intonation fixes. But as I mentioned in the Mods section, I'm not into permanently modifying these or any instruments unless they can be easily reversed with no tell-tale signs that they were ever there as I feel that the value, as well as a piece of history is forever lost when this is done. That being said, there are some ingenious products that have been designed and engineered to help musicians without permanently scarring an instrument. Here are just a few of them for the Dan Armstrong instruments.

Fortunately many luthiers, designers and engineers have stepped in and designed products that solve many of these issues without hacking up an instrument to where it's hardly recognizable. At left and right, GodCity Instruments was one of the first to make replacement tailpieces that attached to the acrylic body using the same factory screws and hole spacing as the originals. Along with Graphtech saddle pieces, it allowed for exact intonation of a Dan Armstrong acrylic instrument without any alterations.

The one at left is seen on a reissue Dan Armstrong guitar, instantly obvious as the guitars' scratchplate employs the additional 8th scratchplate anchor screw (seen just beside the tailpiece). Meanwhile, and as seen at right, they could also machine one for copy instruments as well, tho this guitar is reported to be an Electra 2246WC model which is very close in dimensions to the Ampeg model back then.

Unfortunately, Mr. Kurt Ballou, owner of GodCity Instruments no longer builds these replacement parts - but these photos of his past work can serve as an excellent guide to most any machinist.

As seen at left and right, for a vintage Dan Armstrong bass guitar I recommend trying a Godfrey bridge. This combination bridge/tailpiece is a direct 'drop in replacement' for the Dan Armstrong bridge and secures to the acrylic body using the original factory machine screws so that if you ever sell the instrument, or just want to go back to the original - you can easily swap the bridge back.

Above left and right, the Godfrey fixes all of the problems with intonation and, as said above, requires no alteration to the instrument. Godfrey is on Facebook. Unfortunately the last I knew Godfrey isn't making these at the time of this writing, but you can email them to plead and beg at godfreyguitars@gmail.com.

Notice how the very end of the scratchplate is broken and how a new hole was drilled and tapped for the scratchplate anchoring screw further back. Notice too, the scratchplate has a smooth, shiny texture to it, meaning it's a very early bass.

At left, the Godfrey bridge is a more zoomed-out photo, showing how it looks relative to the rest of the instrument. At right, and seen from the backside, one can't even tell if it's the Godfrey tailpiece/bridge or the original - that's how well 'made-to-match' this bridge is.

Sadly, this instrument has had some alterations done to it. For starters, at right, and seen from the backside, the aforementioned hole that was drilled and tapped for the scratchplate screw can be easily seen. The sad part is that this is one of the more understandable, and hidden alterations that was done. More unreasonable, and seen better in enlarged views of both images, are two holes that have been drilled into the acrylic body - in places where it begs the question... why?

The first one can easily be seen on the upper cut-away horn, while the other one is near the bottom, back by the upper strap peg, seen approximately at the end of the actual strap peg screw itself. For the life of me, I cannot imagine why anyone would drill holes in these two locations and I credit the past owner who didn't fall prey to the temptation of making yet more holes, or worse, routing out the acrylic body for a more tunable bridge. My hats off to the folks at GodCity and Godfrey Instruments and while these 'drop-in' tailpiece/bridges may have to be custom ordered, and made, (they are not stocking items to my knowledge) - it's still nice to know they are turning out nice products as well as viable alternatives to hacking up valuable, and collectable instruments.