5 string banjo to uke conversion - would it work?

bodekr

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Hi All,

I have a Deering Goodtime banjo, and was wondering if any of you have ever converted it to 4 strings with a ukulele tuning. I'm not using it as a banjo much, and thought that, if this was an easy change, I might try it. For those of you who've done anything like this, how did you do it? New strings? Would nylon be necessary, or could this work with banjo strings? Simply get rid of the 5th string and retune? (if so, to what?)

Thanks!

Rich B.
 
I have a 4-string tenor banjo (~22 inch scale length) I keep in "Chicago tuning" which is DGBE, same as a baritone uke. I use light electric guitar strings (Ernie Ball Super Slinky 9's, in the hot pink package), just leave the two bass strings in the envelope. Of course, this is only going to work if your tailpiece will accept ball-end strings.

I experimented a bit trying to get GCEA tuning, but I couldn't get it to work. Maybe someone else has?
 
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