metal strings

trademen · Oct 19, 2011

I've been playing my ukulele pretty non-stop for about a month now, probably a couple hundred hours on the strings at this point and I'm thinking of trying some new stings. My roommates play guitar and banjo and they have tons of strings to spare, I'm kind of tempted to try some metal strings. I've never actually seen a ukulele strung with anything besides nylon or some other "plastic-ish" artificial material.

long questions short, what does ukulele + metal strings equal?

Nuprin · Oct 19, 2011

trademen said:
long questions short, what does ukulele + metal strings equal?

Ukulele + metal strings = broken ukulele.

Metal strings use a LOT more tension than nylon strings. The extra tension can cause the neck to warp, the bridge to come break away from the body, the top to warp...all bad, bad news. Stick with the nylon strings.

Pete Beardsley · Oct 19, 2011

What Nuprin said!! Steel strings need more tension than an ordinary Uke body can handle. Stick with nylon strings.

trademen · Oct 19, 2011

knowledge gained, thank you.

Now for another question, a friend of mine makes electric bass's from scratch and he's considering attempting making en electric uke. Since it's a solid body, do you think it would have the strength to handle metal strings?

strumsilly · Oct 19, 2011

you didn't say what size your uke is, but many string sets have metal wound over fiber strings for the lower pitch strings, esp for tenor/baritone. I didn't think I liked them until I put a stet of Aquila baritone strings for G tuning on a baritone, they really made that no name bari sing!

kissing · Oct 19, 2011

trademen said:
knowledge gained, thank you.

Now for another question, a friend of mine makes electric bass's from scratch and he's considering attempting making en electric uke. Since it's a solid body, do you think it would have the strength to handle metal strings?

Steel string electric ukuleles exist.

Here are videos of some examples (I'm in one of them, can you guess which one?

)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrTto-UimHg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ_tqZjE108
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGD08QWKp9s

ermm.. here's few with clean tone:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gI068j20-Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DmfEv8G-VM

Some popular makers include Risa ( www.ukulele.de ), Jupiter Creek ( http://www.jupitercreekmusic.com/ ), Monkey Wrench (http://monkeywrenchmusic.com/for-sale_..

If your friend is good at what he/she does, I'm sure making a good electric ukulele won't be a problem.
A truss rod may be beneficial in giving the neck extra support from the tension (although some electric uke manufacturers don't use a truss rod).

trademen · Oct 19, 2011

thanks for all the info, for now I'm going to stick with my nylon strings.

metal strings

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