banjolin to an 8 string banjolele?

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Hi, i've got a friend who's got a banjo-mandolin (banjolin) and looking at it the other night, it seems like it'd be quite suitable for conversion to an 8 string banjo ukulele!

It's his grandfathers, so i'm not sure what he'd feel about it, but i think he'd like to see it be used, instead of sitting in his loft.

its got a lovely sound and tone as is (horrible out of tune, but hey) and i was wondering how difficult it would be to tune in the standard uke' tuning?

Presumably i'd be easiest to re-string it with uke strings, as mandolins have a different tuning, but what would the 'slave' strings be tuned to? half a note higher/lower like on 12 string guitars, or?

Any help appreciated!

P.S. does anybody make an 8 string ukulele? got myself all curious now... :D

<<<EDIT>>>
its almost exactly like this one! :
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/OLD-RELIANCE-...temQQimsxZ20090516?IMSfp=TL090516126004r13311
 
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Maybe a mando player can pitch in, but I bet you could test drive it by tuning it to a "my dog has fleas" in the neighborhood of a mandolin tuning.

I think you would tune the second string at the same pitch.
 
8 string ukes

Yes there are a number of 8 string ukuleles out there to puchase. The tuning is GgCcEEAA, with the two lowest strings an octave apart, while the two highest strings are doubled. I don't see why you wouldn't be able to recreate this on a mandolin using the strings for a ukulele, assuming the scale lengths are comparable. I've seen only 8 string tenors, I don't know of any of the smaller sizes.
 
Absolutely you can restring it as linear or reentrant and have a banjuke. The short necks on banjo mandolins make for an easy transition to soprano strings or whatever gauge of ukulele stringing you want to do. I have 90 year old banjo mandolin strung with concert strings. An interesting tuning is Lo-hi G and Hi-lo A. For "Blues" it's a killler!
 
You can give it a go yet there are two issues that I know of that will prevent it from being an easily workable conversion.
Firstly, Mandolins have narrow necks and ukuleles have WIDE necks. Even if you change the strings and tuning its not going to feel right for a ukulele player with its very narrow string spacing.
Secondly as others have noted, there isn't an off the shelf set of strings that will work so your going to have to create a set for yourself.
 
In addition to the narrow neck, which will make some ukulele chords hard to play, the mando-banjo is make for metal strings. If you put ukulele strings on it, it will probably be much quieter. The lower-tension ukulele strings won't drive the head like metal strings. You might also have intonation issues if you use any octave pairs.

But if you do try it, let us know how it works out!

- FiL
 
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