New Guitar Project: Dan Armstrong Replica

The 1960s were a time of experimentation and advancement. We went to the moon. 

And some people just got high.

This spirit of trying new things was obviously a big part of the music of the 1960s. People like Jimi Hendrix redefined what guitars were capable of and what they sounded like. 

But guitar builders were experimenting too. 

A man named Dan Armstrong had a theory about electric guitars. He thought that it would be best to try and limit the vibration of the strings to the strings themselves as much as possible. He didn’t want the body to vibrate, so he looked for alternative materials. 

His choice, pun intended, was clear. 

The Dan Armstrong guitar was made of clear acrylic and featured one pickup. The electronics were designed to be able to change the sound of the pickup several ways to give the guitar a wider range of sounds. 

The earliest and most visible endorser of the Dan Armstrong guitar was Keith Richards, who used it for the Stones 1969 live album Get Yer Ya Yas Out!

A-ronk-a-ronk…

Keith shows off the guitar to Jimi Hendrix backstage at Madison Square Garden. 

You’d think that having a Rolling Stone as an endorsee would pretty much guarantee success, but sadly it didn’t. The Dan Armstrong went out of production by 1971, and originals became both scarce and valuable. 

But they didn’t disappear completely. 

Ron Wood, guitarist for The Faces and later a Rolling Stone, also owned and used a Dan Armstrong.

Joe Perry from Aerosmith also used one. 

The original bridge design for the guitars was very simple, borrowed from Danelectro (for whom Dan Armstrong also worked): a piece of rosewood.

The bridge was only adjustable for intonation in the most rudimentary way. It was also not permanently attached, having only a pin that fit into a slot in the bridge.

Luckily, replacement bridges were offered by dealers.

For that reason as well as the guitar’s relative lack of different sounds, they were often used for slide playing, which makes intonation irrelevant.

Which brings us, in a roundabout way, to the person most responsible for my own interest in the Dan Armstrong guitar.

The same guy that inspired my last build.

Yes, the Georgia Satellites’ Rick Richards.

He’s the reason I wanted a Dan Armstrong.

Can you blame me?

Rick Price, the Satellites’ bassist, also used a Dan Armstong:

The Georgia Satellites: two Ricks, three Dans (work it out).

The guitar has actually been re-issued at least twice, with an improved bridge and newer pickups. The Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl has used one in the past:

But the re-issues are still pretty expensive, and they’re not easy to find, especially here. It’s going to be a lot cheaper to build one. 

So that’s my newest (and most ambitious) project: build a Dan Armstrong replica. It’s not going to be a perfect re-creation, as there are some design details I will change, but I am hoping that to the naked eye it will seem pretty close. 

Stay tuned for more lunacy.