Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Chuck Cobillas on December 16, 2013 at 2:43pm

What brand strings did you use? Aquila strings can take weeks to finally stay in tune but well worth the wait (in my opinion)
;-)

Permalink Reply by jawbone on December 16, 2013 at 5:37pm

Yep - Them's the ones - should be just about ready for Xmas then. I guess I better by the kids a tuner as well. That may be the first lesson.

Permalink Reply by Zeb on January 27, 2014 at 3:52am

I made a CB concert ukulele and had trouble getting the tuning to stay put.

Permalink Reply by jawbone on February 17, 2014 at 11:03am

From what I have heard it can take weeks and weeks to settle in.

Permalink Reply by PhilUSAFRet on February 18, 2014 at 1:35am

Weeks and weeks is an exaggeration.  Aquila strings generally make inexpensive, all laminate traditional ukes sound better..  Since CBG/UKES have thick tops, they seem the natural choice  I have them on some of my ukes. You can speed up the process. Stretch by gently pulling on them a bit before tuning.  With new Aquilas, I keep the uke handy and keep re-tuning it several times during the day, even when I'm not going to play it.  This process takes about 3 days.  After that, it gets better.  Most uke strings will stay in tune after a few days long enough to play quite a bit without retuning.  If you've seen some ukers, you often see clip-on tuners on the headstock of their instruments, regardless of string and frequently fine tune it, even if the strings are fairly well "broken in."  I would probably choose a little thicker string for cigar box ukes than would be called for on the same size traditional uke with a thinner soundboard, perhaps with wound 3rd and 4th strings in low g tuning.