i have a baritone string question?

raecarter

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Hi all just a quick one I sometimes tune my tenor mainland all the way down to baritone tuning with normal high g aquila strings and it plays surprisingly well. My question is if I bought aquila baritone strings that are unwound with a High D would they 1 fit in the notches on my mainland tenor and 2 work? Thanks for a weird question oh and i don't have the money to just buy a baritone lol
 
You could give it ago, but I think there is a better option. Why not buy Aquila Tenor dGBE strings, as they will give you the tuning you need, but be at the right tension. You shouldn't have any problem fitting these in the slots, and although the the E string is quite thick, it fitted nicely into my Kala Archtop tenor.
 
You could give it ago, but I think there is a better option. Why not buy Aquila Tenor dGBE strings, as they will give you the tuning you need, but be at the right tension. You shouldn't have any problem fitting these in the slots, and although the the E string is quite thick, it fitted nicely into my Kala Archtop tenor.

What they exist thanks so much!
 
Rae - I can't answer your question about the slot widths, but if you can't afford a baritone and want one, you might consider what I did. I bought an old kid's guitar at a thrift shop for $10 and converted it to a baritone by removing two of the strings and cutting new slots in the nut. It sounds as good, if not better, than many commercial baritones to my ears. I did buy some I used some Ernie Ball folk guitar (plastic) strings on it, but moved them over a slot so I could tune them higher. Sound sample and some pictures here.

http://www.box.net/shared/11mxobs4t5

http://www.box.net/files#/files/0/f/0/1/f_503431394

http://www.box.net/shared/x7ufmnno2s
 
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Rae - I can't answer your question about the slot widths, but if you can't afford a baritone and want one, you might consider what I did. I bought an old kid's guitar at a thrift shop for $10 and converted it to a baritone by removing two of the strings and cutting new slots in the nut. It sounds as good, if not better, than many commercial baritones to my ears. I did buy some I used some Ernie Ball folk guitar (plastic) strings on it, but moved them over a slot so I could tune them higher. Sound sample and some pictures here.

http://www.box.net/shared/11mxobs4t5

http://www.box.net/files#/files/0/f/0/1/f_503431394

http://www.box.net/shared/x7ufmnno2s

I actually own a kids guitar I converted to make a tenor guitar with steel strings but it has peg holes
 
The one I had had pegs in the bridge too. That is the main reason I used the Ernie Ball strings - they have ball ends. Its also a simple matter to just tie some small beads (available cheap at craft stores) on any strings you want to make ball ends of. The guitar I converted was an old steel string harmony (laminate top)
 
I did have one problem with the bridge. Since it had pins for 6 strings, there was no way to put the strings in and get the right spacing. I had a choice between using all the 4 center pin holes, or moving all to one side, or something else. In the end, I chose to put three strings next to each other, and skip a hole for the bass string. (see pictures) That gave me some slightly weird spacing on the bass string, but since I like to pluck it with my thumb it worked out fine. One day I will remove the bridge and make a new one with four slots for it. I may remove the extra two tuners at the same time and fill the holes.
 
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Hi a little update I spoke to a specialist uke shop bout my desire to play a tenor uke in a baritone tuning but without a wound string and he said he has tried this and others also have to get worth clears baritone strings then put the g b e on the tenor then use the double length of the e and the re entrant d string I'm going to give it a go
 
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