Aquila string gauges

maikii

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I mistakenly bought a set of Aquila six-string baritone strings, rather than a regular four string set.

I figure, no problem, no need to return it. It has the regular four strongs of a normal EBGD baritone tuning, plus two more (unwound), to double the two lower wound strings.

I figure I can probably use the two extra strings for other ukes.

However, I don't see on any Aquila packages, what the gauges of any of their strings are, so I have no idea what the two extra strings could be used for--whether 2nd on a soprano, 1st on a tenor, etc,, or even if they are the same as the first two unwound bari strings.

Does anyone know--is there a list somewhere of what the gauges are of all their strings, in all the different sets, so that one could know what the two extra strings could be used for? (I'm sue there would be other uses for that info, as well s what I described above. For instance, someone here wrote he buys tenor strings for his soprano, cuts them, and it gives him three sets. Well, that would only work well, if the soprano and tenor strings had the exact same gauges (would surprise me), and only different lengths.)

Anyone know of such a chart? They really should provide one.

Thank you
 
Just Strings lists string diameters however, they don't stock the entire Aquila line. AFAIK, it's the only site I've found that does so.
 
Hello maikii,

Depends on what other instruments you have as to whether you may be able to find a use for those extra strings. You are a bit off, however, on what they represent. Aquila does, indeed have a chart (scroll down to the bottom of their page):


http://www.aquilacorde.com/en/modern-instrument-sets/ukulele.html


What it indicates are double courses for the 1st & 3rd positions, not 1st & 2nd. One of the extra nylgut strings is indeed a doubled E, but the other is an octave G. Interestingly they are shown to be the same diameter!
 
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You're welcome big K,

I stumbled on that chart one day, and was kind of surprised. It hasn't always been available, and I don't know exactly when it went up. Before we started doing our own strings, we did custom stringing on our instruments, and sometimes used Aquila material for at least some parts of a set-up.

I asked Mimmo about his gauges back then, but he didn't want to let out the info. "No one else does this - why should I" were more or less his words (and he was very nice about it). I figured it out the hard way - trial and error.

Looks like at some point, he changed his mind. I think it was a good move. If for some reason you like "brand A", instead of Southcoast Strings you can now do a little fine tuning on your set-up. With the chart link above, you can see where you are; then to get a little more or less tension you go here:

http://aquilausa.com/ng_strings.html

Curtis Daly at Aquila USA is a great guy to deal with!
 
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