Harmony, Silvertone, Airline, etc. baritone question re. strings

Yeah, I know, another string question. However, I am more interested in what people use on their Harmony-made baritone uke and why, oh, and I'm only really interested in standard baritone tuning as that's how I plan to keep mine tuned.

I have a Harmony from the 1950's and I love it. I am running Aquila strings on it now since they sound great on both of my mom's baritones, one with a solid mahogany top, the other all laminated. However, I am not so sure I like them too much on the Harmony. I mean, they sound good, but they seem kind of floppy (for lack of a better word). It's weird... on both of my mom's baritones, the tension on her Aquila strings seem great, but not so much on my Harmony. I can't figure out why. Anyhow, owners of Harmony made baritones, can you please chime in?

Thanks,
Dan

Hey Dan, I just got a solid Mahogany Harmony and I've been really happy with Living Waters reentrant G tuning dGBE. I'm also a fan of Southcoast strings and I have the Linear Medium Guage on my Mya-Moe baritone tuned to Bb. I'm going to try Southcoast Heavy Guage in traditional Baritone tuning DGBE on my upcoming Favilla Baritone. One of the nice things about Southcoast is that they sound great and the tension of their strings feel right and not floppy like you described.

Good luck,

Don

P.S. Not sure but if the Harmony is a 19" scale instead of 20" then that may account for the looser tension according to Dirk at Southcoast.

Thanks. I actually made the change over from Aquila to the Martin Fluorocarbons. It did make a difference. Maybe you're right on the Harmony scale, probably a bit shorter as the strings are much tighter now. I lose some of the bass that I had with the Aquila, which I actually liked, but I do find myself playing the baritone more now that I have the Martins on it.

Dan

I found that traditional tuning sounded really flat and muffled on my Harmony Baritone. I wanted to play mine that way too, but since I put Southcoast Linear nonwound strings (key of C) on it it just sounds soooooooo much better, it really came to life. I know that's not what you wanted to hear but after reading the info on the Southcoast website, I'm not going to bother trying to string mine in standard baritone tuning again.

Good luck!