Mandola to Taropatch ?

Pukulele Pete

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Does anyone know if You can change the steel strings on a Mandola
to nylon and tune it like a ukulele , a taropatch ? I'm thinking you might have to enlarge the slots in the nut. Has anyone tried this and does it work well? thanks
 
The Mandola is built to handle the much higher tension of steel strings. The low-tension uke strings will be very quiet.

- FiL
 
I have several different instruments built for steel strings tuned different from the intended tuning, and with different material. I am quite satisfied with the sound of every one of them. Mandolins - Balalaika - Banjo - 1923 Martin t-18 are some of the mutants..... How it feels to your fingers and sounds to your ears is all that matters.
 
My mandola has relatively low tension strings, compared to my mandolin.

My Yamaha guitar was bought with steel strings. I fitted nylon strings without even considering there may be a problem ... there wasn't!

Other than re-working the nut, I wouldn't anticipate an issue, but do go slowly. With the lower-tension of nylon strings the neck may tend to "bend backwards" slightly for a day or two, until it finds a new setting. If you're a bit overly keen with the nut file immediately you may just find some strings starting to buzz unaccountably a few days later and you may have to re-fill the slots slightly. Once the strings stay in tune for a reasonable amount of time you can be fairly certain the neck has settled and you can finish fine-tuning the action, if you need to.

Good luck, and as always ... YMMV ;)
 
CAN you restring the mandola with nylon-oid? Sure. Will you be happy with the results? Maybe. As mentioned, it might be rather quieter than you expect; the string tension may not be sufficient to drive the soundboard's mass.

Consider: I stick a micrometer into my instruments and measure soundboard thicknesses. My Kohala soprano 'ukes are about .090 inch. My Kala tenor uke is about the same. My Kay and Rogue A-type mandolins (also soprano instruments) are both about .140 inch, or half again as thick. My Mexican cuatro-menor, built similar to a mandola, is about the same. That's a lot more mass for the strings to move.

So, standard nylon strings will probably be disappointing. What to do, what to do? Just for ducks, I gargled for high-tension nylon guitar strings. Guess what? THEY EXIST! Then I tried high-tension nylon ukulele strings. Bingo! GHS Fluorocarbon High Tension Fingerstyle Ukulele Strings might be the way for you to go.
 
Try it. I put uke strings on a tenor banjo to create a baritone banjolele. It works for me in the settings that I play it in.

** If you have a magnetic pickup, they won't work with nylon **
 
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