Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by BrianQ. on October 31, 2019 at 9:13am

Let us see your work? I believe the reason he used nylon strings was because of the amount of tension that the short scale put on steel strings? There’s an old gitty gang episode where he explained how he developed the Hobo fiddle somewhere? Maybe Ben will see this & chime in?

Permalink Reply by PEGGY TRAMBLE on October 31, 2019 at 9:27am

thanks for the reply,  I was wondering if mandolin strings would work  but they may put too much tension on the neck.  

Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on November 1, 2019 at 7:41am

If your talking about the C.B.Gitty Hobo Fiddle, it's a 17" baritone ukulele scale. Tenor strings start out at 19" scale, so a set of those may work.

Permalink Reply by Ben "C. B. Gitty" Baker on January 8, 2020 at 5:11am

Hello Peggy, the 17" scale of the Hobo Fiddle kit is roughly the same as a tenor ukulele. However, while the kit really wasn't designed with steel strings, it may be able to handle them as long as you stay on the lighter gauge. That being said, unfortunately I don't really have any clear suggestion on what string gauges to use to achieve GDG... I haven't tried it with steel strings at that scale.