What strings to use DGBE on a concert

Hi, I'm wanting to tune my Concert Eleuke as a baritone (high D).
But uke strings only seem to come in DGBE for tenor and baritone.
So I figured that I would have to make my own set with classical guitar strings.

I have no idea how to work out what string gauge would be appropriate. Can someone help me out?
Thanks


-Sam

Hi Sam,

now that's an unconventional idea... however it looks as if you cannot do this with classical guitar strings.
You can find the string diameters needed in the table far below and I have tried to match these to a D'Addario EJ46 Pro Arté Hard Tension set of classical guitar strings.
The result is, that you can only use two strings of the D'Addario set for your purpose:

1) 0.76 mm D4th (J4604) string (silver-plated copper wound nylon) for your uke G3rd
2) 0.831 mm B2nd (J4602) string (nylon) for your uke E1st

The other strings of the guitar set are not suitable at all in this case, as you can see yourself from the table far below, which shows the ideal diameters required for the different strings.

My suggestion is, that you only use the 0.76 mm D4th string from a guitar set (you can get them single, too!)
And then use Seaguar fluorocarbon fishing line for the other strings as follows:

D (high) - G - B - E
0.74 mm - guitar 4th - 0.91 mm - 0.66 mm (Seaguar Fluorocarbon available)[/B]

IMHO that's the only string combination that works.
However, notice that since the B 2nd has a large diameter, the string is rather stiff and probably won't sound that good on such a small scale instrument! But since you're going to play it amplified, you may give it a try.


Now here's the table with the ideal diameters for your tuning purpose:

DGBE on Concert (scale: 380 mm, tension per string: 3.74 kg)

D (high) G B E
0.726 mm 1.088 mm 0.863 mm 0.647 mm (Fluorocarbon)
0.903 mm 1.353 mm 1.074 mm 0.805 mm (Nylon)
0.495 mm 0.742 mm 0.589 mm 0.441 mm (Silver-plated copper wound nylon)

Cheers,
Dirk

Thanks for the detailed reply dirk!
I was actually going to send you a message about it separately later on, but it looks like you found me on UU first

It seems rather complicated (I hoped for an easy walk-into-the-store solution), but I think I get the idea.
I'll have to do a bit of fishing line hunting at shops I guess.

kissing said:

Thanks for the detailed reply dirk!
I was actually going to send you a message about it separately later on, but it looks like you found me on UU first

It seems rather complicated (I hoped for an easy walk-into-the-store solution), but I think I get the idea.
I'll have to do a bit of fishing line hunting at shops I guess.

Click to expand...

Sam, I can just send you a set as a gift so you may try it out before you buy miles of fishing line yourself. PM me your address if you're interested. You should definitely go for the Seaguar brand fishing line only! These are made very accurately to precision along the entire length of line. I have checked it with a micrometer. I have also tried another brand (STREN) and it's not suitable for uke strings. The diameter is not consistent over the length of string and after a certain time, the strings start to get "thin threads" and when you try to pull them off, the strings break. I'm only playing Seaguar on all my ukes (except for the wound strings of course) and I've never had any issues!
I'm also playing some nylon fishing line, some unknown brand I found here in Germany. It sounds nice on some ukuleles (e.g. the Ohana Cedar top tenor). But fluorocarbon material is definitely better.

Thanks so much dirk!
I'll send the PM

One thought that pops in my head is that with such an extreme change in string widths would probably involve widening the string slots in the nut, too...is modding the uke worth the experiment?

Yeah, that did cross my mind.
At the moment, I'm just hoping that it can handle it. If modifications have to be made, hopefully minor.

I didn't have to make any adjustments when putting Aquila DGBE's on my Kala Tenor, and they're rather fat strings too.
The nut on the Eleuke doesn't have deep narrow grooves, so I'm kinda hoping the strings would just sit on top of them comfortably
I also hope the strings fit through the bridge tunnels when tying..


(My situation is that I'm currently stuck with no acoustic GCEA uke, so I'm restringing my tenor to GCEA back from DGBE, as I miss the sound.
Now if my Eleuke can fill the role of Baritone, that would be truly useful!)


edit: It just occured to me that if the G-string is a problem, I could use a low-G string from a set for concert ukes.
Would a DGBE set for Tenor ukes be too loose on a Concert?

You probably don't need the info anymore, but if you still do, I'd check with these folks:

http://www.southcoastukes.com/stringuide.htm