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Permalink Reply by Titch the Clown on December 18, 2016 at 1:21pm

Short answer: Yes but.

Yes it should work but my recipe for tenor scale ukes (17 inch or therabouts) is 50 80 60 40 lb fishing line for standard rentrant GCEA tuning. For low G tuning a lot of people buy a guitar D string. I bought a 1/2 lb spool of Jervis Walker Nylon fishing line every guage from 100 down to 30 for about 5 dollars a spool from Big W (a Kmart equivalent) I now have enough for several hundred ukuleles for the price of a single set of premium strings.
There are string tension charts around hopefully someone who knows where they are will chip in.

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Permalink Reply by Hal Robertson on December 18, 2016 at 2:07pm

I second the fishing line idea. Ukuleles typically have nylon strings anyway.

On my one and only uke build (so far - another in the works), I used fluorocarbon line that I'd bought for an upcoming banjo build. Love it! 

Maybe Titch has some wisdom to share, but I could never get the monofilament to settle in. Always, always, always out of tune. And I stretched them too. Flurocarbon took a week or so to settle down. Love the feel and the sound of DIY 'nylon' strings.

Attaching a pic of mine. Think I used 20, 30, 50, 20...or something like that. Slippery stuff. Run them through some super fine sandpaper and/or steel wool first. Gives them a bit more texture.

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Permalink Reply by Titch the Clown on December 18, 2016 at 4:11pm

They do have to stretch a little more than high quality ones but the main thing to do is remember that fishing knots are designed for fishing line. I started out using simple larks heads to put a loop in the end and then hooked or looped that over a nail or through a tail piece made from hinges. Lately I have been using Pitzen knots a lot.

Regular stopper knots work fine on standard Martin style slot uke bridges.

I do try to eliminate slippage on the tuners by feeding the loose end back up under the string to lock it better into place. I try to limit the windings around the peg to under 6. The tension has to work its way evenly around all the windings. I have purposely over tightened strings on occasions anf find that after tuning them down the tenion in the strings around on the tuner worksbits way back down into the string and it goes sharp after leaving it sit for a while.

Final tip is when first tuned up grab 5he loose ends with a pair of pliers and give them a good tug to tighten the knots.

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Permalink Reply by David Bowes on December 19, 2016 at 10:24pm

Thanks to you to all for the advice. If I used standard guitar strings (as I have them to hand) any recommendations for tunings?

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Permalink Reply by Lane Martin on December 20, 2016 at 8:53am

If they are extra light (light may work...haven't tried it), you use the DGBE strings. You can tune to GCEA with those...use the B string for the high G, D for the C, G for the E, and E for the A.

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