Tenor Guitar made from a Yamaha CS40

johnnysmash

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I am planing to convert my Yamaha CS 40 Guitar, nylon string guitar, to a Tenor Guitar by removing two of the lower strings (E,A) and re-positioning strings 1-4 to where 2-5 use to set. Tuned DGBE. The scale is 22 3/4 inch and the nut width is 1 7/8 inch. I see the neck width as - no problem. I would like your feedback and opinions on this. Thank you.
 
Can't hurt to try it.
 
I had actually taken off the E and A string and left the others in place on a guitar a few years ago. If you are not using a thumb over to form chords it worked very well. You might start there, just requires the removal of two strings. Then after playing a while move them up to 5 - 2 slots. Easy cheap experiments.

I just remembered that before I even did that I covered the E and A strings with a long strip of green painters tape. It muted the strings even while strumming and gave me a good initial impression.
 
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Tenor guitar has steel strings. Even with only four strings and in chicago tuning this may be too much tension for this guitar. You'd just have a long and wide neck baritone uke if you keep the nylon strings. With string re-positioning you may also have to adjust nut slots and saddle compensation/angle if intonation goes off.
 
Today I did the deed. First I removed the E and A strings. Played for awhile. Liked the sound so I moved the strings to the 2 - 5 string position. I then played for about an hour and kept tuning over and over again. The strings had been on the guitar for about six weeks already. They finally settled in. Maybe because I had kept it tuned in drop 3 tuning. Anyway I did find one problem, me, I just keep trying to fret the fret board instead of the string. I guess I will have to get new muscle memory there. On one song that calls for a D note in DGBE tuning, I must have hit the wood instead of the 3rd fret of the first string at least a hundred times. After awhile I started getting use to it. Otherwise it looks good and feel good. Sound seems the same. If all is well after a month or two I will see if the neck can be cut down some or shaved a little on each side or just replaced with a new neck. It looks as tho there is a rod in the neck but not sure. I guess a trip to Bangkok is in order again. I call this my Tenor Guitar but it is really a four string Classical Guitar.
 
Today I did the deed. First I removed the E and A strings. Played for awhile. Liked the sound so I moved the strings to the 2 - 5 string position. I then played for about an hour and kept tuning over and over again. The strings had been on the guitar for about six weeks already. They finally settled in. Maybe because I had kept it tuned in drop 3 tuning. Anyway I did find one problem, me, I just keep trying to fret the fret board instead of the string. I guess I will have to get new muscle memory there. On one song that calls for a D note in DGBE tuning, I must have hit the wood instead of the 3rd fret of the first string at least a hundred times. After awhile I started getting use to it. Otherwise it looks good and feel good. Sound seems the same. If all is well after a month or two I will see if the neck can be cut down some or shaved a little on each side or just replaced with a new neck. It looks as tho there is a rod in the neck but not sure. I guess a trip to Bangkok is in order again. I call this my Tenor Guitar but it is really a four string Classical Guitar.

If that turns out to be too much work/money, replace the nut to get the strings spread out a bit more evenly. Baritones have wider string spacing than your CS40, but you might not want to space them across the whole 48 mm nut as that might be a bit too wide.
 
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