unwound fifths for an Outdoor tenor ukulele?

Stagehand

Stagehand

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I am looking for an unwound fifths string recipe for an Outdoor tenor ukulele.

CGDA would be a bonus.

or

If someone could walk me thru one of the string tension calculators and I can figure it out for myself.

Thanks...Sean
 
Are you open to having the C be reentrant? If so, that should be easy but you might have to widen the 3rd nut slot. I don't think you're going to get an unwound string on a tenor much lower than G. And GDAE isn't going to work for the high E.

I'm thinking the lowest you could do would be EBF#C# but the low E is going to be very loose and the high c# will be very tight
 
Have never been able to get CGDA or any other comfortable fifths combo on a tenor without using wound strings. Have even tried to find some nonwound classical guitar and bass strings capable of hitting C & G cleanly, but no luck. If anyone has any ideas, would be happy to learn them.

The Aquila 31U set (CGDA for concert ukes) works fine on tenors. Have been using them on all my tenor ukes. They do have wound strings on C & G.
 
Jim Hanks said:
Are you open to having the C be reentrant?
Click to expand...
SteveZ said:
The Aquila 31U set (CGDA for concert ukes) works fine on tenors. Have been using them on all my tenor ukes. They do have wound strings on C & G.
Click to expand...

Thanks .
I am looking for a linear set.
'Just purchased a Fender Tenor Tele and was looking for something to keep in the car.
I already have an Outdoor tenor and hoped that it would be a good candidate.
 
Unwound C & G (for CGDA) , if you can find them, are going to have a fairly large diameter. They will be too large to fit in the factory-cut nut slots. In order to use such strings the nut slots will have to be considerably widened. If not, the strings will be pinched and subsequently be gouged when tuned to any tension. When that happens, they snap violenty when brought to tuning tension. That's one of the reasons why wound strings exist.

So, if one does find such unwound strings and wants to use them, be prepared to rework the nut - or else....
 
SteveZ said:
Unwound C & G (for CGDA) , if you can find them, are going to have a fairly large diameter. They will be too large to fit in the factory-cut nut slots. In order to use such strings the nut slots will have to be considerably widened. If not, the strings will be pinched and subsequently be gouged when tuned to any tension. When that happens, they snap violenty when brought to tuning tension. That's one of the reasons why wound strings exist.

So, if one does find such unwound strings and wants to use them, be prepared to rework the nut - or else....
Click to expand...


This is what I am afraid of.

Thanks to everybody!
 
SteveZ said:
So, if one does find such unwound strings and wants to use them, be prepared to rework the nut - or else....
Click to expand...

Just not gonna find one. The biggest unwound string available is the low D baritone string from Living Water (or Worth) and it is passable on baritone. Dropping 3" of scale length and another step isn't going to be viable.
 
To me, the string nut on the OUs looks hollow. So I would not touch it. I don't currently have one, but have had soprano and tenor in the past and remembered that from looking them over thoroughly. Maybe ask the company to confirm. I could be wrong.
 
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