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• Review

Despite a brief production period (1969 to 1971), the Ampeg Dan Armstrong has inspired an A-list of rockers, old and new, from Keith Richards to Justin Hawkins and Dave Grohl.

Over the years Ampeg have sporadically released reissues of the famous instrument and this is the 2006 vintage.

Hands on

Whether or not it's the fact that guitar design has moved on very little since 1969, the 2006 'See Through' just doesn't seem to have aged.

It still looks futuristic and a little gimmicky, although there's a precision to this reissue that was lacking from the originals.

The clear plastic body is thinner – around 32mm – than a standard wooden solidbody but it remains a heavy guitar.

Dan Armstrong is quoted as saying: "My intention was to make a guitar that sustained extremely well. Plastic was obviously one good material for the body because of its rigidity."

Elsewhere he has said he wanted it to be, "totally electric – an un-banjo so as not to ever resemble any guitar or banjo of the past".

The proper name for the clear plastic used is polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), commonly known as acrylic and available with different brand-names: Plexiglas, Lucite and Perspex.

It was developed back in 1928 and brought to market in 1933 by the German Company Rohm and Haas. So there.

The strapped-on balance of the 'See Through' feels very centred and, weight aside, it's not uncomfortable.

It's a very cool shape with those symmetrical horns, elegant waist and its SG-like edge chamfering around the quite rounded lower bouts thinning out towards those horns.

Be aware, however, that the top edge is quite sharp and, depending on how you play, it could easily scrape the skin off the underside of your forearm.

The dual body strap-buttons are designed to allow the guitar to stand upright when leant against an amp and give optional strap anchorage.

This was a pretty unique idea in 1969 and you'll find the technique borrowed by a few makers today, most notably Tom Anderson.

Another 'See Through' innovation was the 24-fret rosewood fingerboard that sits clear of the body – it was one of the first guitars, bolt-on or otherwise, with this feature.

To achieve this the maple neck is extended some 90mm under the metal-backed Formica pickguard – where a neck pickup would be – and is then bolted to the body with four chunky bolts that screw into nuts inlaid into the face of this maple 'tongue'.

On the originals the bolts were reversed – the bolt head was under the pickguard and threaded into a domed and chromed nut on the back of the body.

"The original design had tuning stability issues," explains Ampeg's Paul Meisenzahl. "The use of rather large bolt nuts to secure the neck to the body meant that a substantial amount of wood had to be removed from the 'tongue' of the neck.

"That's why we've changed the neck joint. We think that tuning stability has been significantly improved, as there's more mass to the 'tongue' of the neck. And, in addition, it's now easier to remove the neck for any potential service-related procedures."