magicspeller
Well-known member
I did it! It took my wife and me three tries. I thought for sure I'd twisted and kinked the strings so much that I was going to have to buy new ones, but we got it.
It's a tie-bar bridge with Gotoh Planetary tuners. The hardest part for us was looping the strings properly to get the twist knot right. I watched the TUS and Martin videos and we messed it up the first two times (and the knots came loose when I tightened the strings). The video that I thought showed the knot tying most clearly was one from Katie DeNure at One Music School.
The tuner stringing was a little confusing. Katie said to make sure that the twists go underneath the string (toward the headstock). Barry Maz says the same thing, and so do other videos that I've watched in the past. The Martin video, on the other hand, emphasizes very clearly that the twists should go above the string. When I looked at my ukulele it was very clear that on the existing strings, the twists go above, so that was the way I did it. My conclusion was that the discrepancy must be due to different manufacturers doing it differently, and that Rebel and Martin must be different than most. (In fact, writing this made me curious, so I checked a Kala and an Enya, and both of those go underneath.) Or is the difference due to the tuners, maybe?
Yes, I do know that it takes a while for the strings to settle down. One Kala that I bought second-hand had never been used and had apparently been sitting on the shelf for months, if not years, and I didn't think I'd ever get it tuned properly and get it to stay in tune. I usually spend a fair amount of time stretching them manually and I think it helps.
I just did the one string today. The Excella and Martin strings do seem to be similar enough that I should be okay for my class tonight, and I'll replace the other three strings tomorrow. Thanks very much for the help, everyone!
It's a tie-bar bridge with Gotoh Planetary tuners. The hardest part for us was looping the strings properly to get the twist knot right. I watched the TUS and Martin videos and we messed it up the first two times (and the knots came loose when I tightened the strings). The video that I thought showed the knot tying most clearly was one from Katie DeNure at One Music School.
The tuner stringing was a little confusing. Katie said to make sure that the twists go underneath the string (toward the headstock). Barry Maz says the same thing, and so do other videos that I've watched in the past. The Martin video, on the other hand, emphasizes very clearly that the twists should go above the string. When I looked at my ukulele it was very clear that on the existing strings, the twists go above, so that was the way I did it. My conclusion was that the discrepancy must be due to different manufacturers doing it differently, and that Rebel and Martin must be different than most. (In fact, writing this made me curious, so I checked a Kala and an Enya, and both of those go underneath.) Or is the difference due to the tuners, maybe?
Yes, I do know that it takes a while for the strings to settle down. One Kala that I bought second-hand had never been used and had apparently been sitting on the shelf for months, if not years, and I didn't think I'd ever get it tuned properly and get it to stay in tune. I usually spend a fair amount of time stretching them manually and I think it helps.
I just did the one string today. The Excella and Martin strings do seem to be similar enough that I should be okay for my class tonight, and I'll replace the other three strings tomorrow. Thanks very much for the help, everyone!
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