Dan Armstrong was a brilliant, ambitious
inventor who, like many gifted
minds before him, became easily distracted
with new ideas. Throughout his 64 years,
Armstrong designed acrylic-bodied guitars
for Ampeg, movable pickups for his
own guitars, and graphic EQs for his
Dan Armstrong bass amps, in addition
to collaborating on bass and guitar amps
for Ampeg and Fender, respectively, and
launching his own line of effects pedals.
In his spare time, he played studio sessions
and live shows alongside Van Morrison and
Carly Simon in the late ’60s.
Armstrong started honing his luthiery
skills at Carroll Music. Owner Carroll
Bratman hired him because he always
returned the equipment he rented in better
shape than when it left the shop. In
1965, Armstrong opened his own Dan
Armstrong’s Guitar Service on 48th Street
in New York City—across from Manny’
Music. The shop specialized in Danelectro
upgrades and amp- and guitar-wiring mods.
After a few years there, he was forced to
relocate to Greenwich Village to accommodate
the expansion of Rockefeller Center,
and that’s when he changed the name to
Dan Armstrong Guitars. Matt Umanov
joined up and the two drafted prototypes
for the Ampeg Dan Armstrong see-through
acrylic instruments. On the heels of the
relationship with Ampeg, Armstrong closed
his NYC shop and moved to London for
a brief stint with Orange. Then, in 1971,
with the help of his son Kent Armstrong
and Tony Pitt, Dan constructed the
London Series instruments.
The 1972 London shown here features
a Honduran mahogany body similar to the
Ampeg Dan Armstrong Plexi model, which
is reminiscent of a ’50s Les Paul Jr.—Dan’s
favorite guitar. The neck is also Honduran
mahogany, while the fretboard is rosewood.
Both were contracted out to carpenter Ian
Halsey. “The solid, fat mahogany body
gives the guitar a thick, raw sound much
like a ’57 Les Paul Jr.,” says Chris Gray,
owner of this London. “The neck carve is
also very vintage, like a Jr., making it one
of the most comfortable necks I’ve ever
played.” Quality woodworking aside, Dan’s
main focus was the instrument’s bridge,
pickups, and wiring.
The cast-aluminum wraparound bridge
looks like a ’50s-style tailpiece, but is fully
adjustable and is connected to an aluminum
ramp running from the bridge to
where the fretboard meets the body. The
ramp houses two Armstrong humbuckers,
both of which can be moved all the way
from the bridge to the neck and anywhere
in between. (Most London models featured
only one pickup and had a natural
wood finish, however, later London
models started incorporating production
changes like the second humbucker seen
here and different finishes, like white,
green, black, and more.)
The guitars were wired so that when the
tone control was all the way up, it would
short-circuit half of each pickup, making
it essentially a single-coil and brightening
the sound beyond the 10-setting on the
tone control. The low-impedance pickups
use a transformer housed in the guitar’s
control cavity to adapt the signal to high
impedance for use with an amp. To keep
the pickups lean and mean, the Armstrongs
created thin pickups by using 38-gauge
wire. And while original two-pickup
London models didn’t come with a pickup
selector, the guitar shown here features one
that was added later as a mod.
“I have a ’69 Ampeg Lucite Dan
Armstrong that I play slide with a lot,”
says Gray. “But it turns out this London
rivals it for slide work—it has its own
special sound past the 12th fret, because
of the added harmonics when the front
pickup is up against the neck where the
24th fret would be.”
A special thanks to Chris Gray and danarmstrong.org for the opportunity to feature
this fine piece of gear and its story.