Using classical guitar strings and/or fishing line

Tabbycat

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Tabbycat here... ukulele newbie but I can play guitar and violin and I'm learning mandolin. So, being used to my strings going from low to high, I'm thinking I want to fool around with low G.

I have already been afflicted with UAS to the point that I have a Kala tenor, a Donner concert, a Kala concert, and five sopranos (Kala SEM, Ubeta travel, Makala Dolphin, Muke, and Mitchell-got it on sale at Guitar Center and only bought it because it matches my bluegrass group western shirt; it has pretty sorry strings to start with). So I want to string one soprano GDAE like my fiddle and mandolin, and another uke lowGCEA.

I have a couple of new sets of classical guitar strings I can use. And today I was going through my late brother's toolbox (he died of leukemia in 2014) and found a spool of 30-weight monofiliment line. Will that be of any use?

Has anybody done much substituting guitar strings on your ukulele? Or stringing with fishing line? All advice eagerly welcomed!
 
There are lots of threads about guitar strings and fishing line, but for your purposes, there are so many off-the-shelf options, I wouldn't bother - unless you just really like experimenting. For example, I think you'd be better off starting with this set for soprano GDAE:
https://www.stringsbymail.com/aquila-soprano-ukulele-new-nylgut-strings-fifths-tuning-30u-17199.html

And there are lots of low g options for concert and tenor

What Jim said ^ is going to be the path of least resistance.

I currently have 3 ukes tuned in fifths, but each one is a custom string recipe, as well as a tenor guitar hacked into being from a 6-stringer that is strung/tuned re-entrant GDAE but in the range of an octave mandolin and is 22" scale length.

You also can find more info about strings from lots of my previous posts here on UU by click on the FAQ link in my signature below.
 
I wouldn't try low G on a soprano. Even a wound string would be too thick compared to its length, and will sound "thuddy" and have poor intonation. Physics is against you with a soprano :)

Low G works ok on a concert, better on a tenor.
 
i've just used some classical guitar d strings to make some of my ukes low g. i've done it on 2 soprano ukes where i liked how it sounded - a korala cheap little painted uke, and a (cheap) made-from-a-kit uke. it sounded pretty awful on my ohana sk-28 soprano uke, so i changed that back to high g. i also used a classical d string to make one of my concert ukes high g. they do say that back in the day, before you could buy a gazillion kinds of uke string, people used classical guitar strings all the time on ukes. trying a single guitar d string, as a low g, is a great way to see if that sound works for you and for any particular uke, and it definitely can sound nice (in my opinion.)
 
Tabbycat here... ukulele newbie but I can play guitar and violin and I'm learning mandolin. So, being used to my strings going from low to high, I'm thinking I want to fool around with low G.

I have already been afflicted with UAS to the point that I have a Kala tenor, a Donner concert, a Kala concert, and five sopranos (Kala SEM, Ubeta travel, Makala Dolphin, Muke, and Mitchell-got it on sale at Guitar Center and only bought it because it matches my bluegrass group western shirt; it has pretty sorry strings to start with). So I want to string one soprano GDAE like my fiddle and mandolin, and another uke lowGCEA.

I have a couple of new sets of classical guitar strings I can use. And today I was going through my late brother's toolbox (he died of leukemia in 2014) and found a spool of 30-weight monofiliment line. Will that be of any use?

Has anybody done much substituting guitar strings on your ukulele? Or stringing with fishing line? All advice eagerly welcomed!

Swapping strings to get a better tuning fit is no problem. It just takes practice and a little math.

Have used 30 pound test mono line for an A string and 20-test as an E sring on soprano ukes tuned GDAE for use as "travel mandos." The tone was acceptable and the tension strength was better than commercial Uke GDAE string packs.

Steel guitar or mando strings on a uke are a definite NO. Ukes are not braced for steel strings and the necessary tuning tension can be downright dangerous, causing strings to snap off and do serious harm to the player.
 
I've used the two sets of classical guitar strings method to get a C tuning on a Baritone without any wound strings, and it works. But there are a lot of commercial options on the market for alternate tunings and such. Southcoast has some interesting options.
 
I have a D'Addario Pro Arte wound D string as low G on my Kiwaya soprano and it sounds great. The other three are fishing line.
 
Aquila red low G (new sugar polymer) and the old red low G it replaced sound great on my KA-SEM? I dont use wound strings on ukuleles.
 
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