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AGP #364 - ‘’Château de Wâkefield’’

AGP #364 – “Château de Wâkefield”
4 String Tenor Wine Box Guitar
Scale: 584.2mm/23inches
Strings: .032NW/.024NW/.018PS/.014PS/
Tuning : DGBE

The Wine Box was a generous gift from some long time good friends!
It has solid 7mm Pine sides and 4mm Pine Plywood top & bottom, the laminated neck is recycled bits of Tasmanian Oak and Forest Red Gum, and the Fretboard is recycled Spotted Gum, a 6.2k MGB Mini Box Bucker Pickup is hardwired to the Output Jack.
This Box was put on the work bench and taken off several times due to me not knowing what type of build to best use for this lovely Wine Box, I think the final decision was the right one!, But I’m not sure if I’m happy with the String Gauges I’ve used, I still have to lower the action a bit more yet, but the strings do seem a bit tight, and harsh on my poor old hamfisted bricklayer’s fingertips.
Perhaps the “King of the Tenor Guitar” Uncle John may enlighten me with some of his vast knowledge of all things Tenorish! :-)

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Comment by AGP # on September 9, 2019 at 9:25am: "Thanks Dave", I like the listen to the strings method you describe!, will definitely lighten up the high pitched string gauges I have on it at the moment as I do prefer the lower pitched tones, but still in two minds as to use string gauges that suit DGBE or CGCG :-)

Comment by Dave Lynas on September 8, 2019 at 12:58pm: I just do it by listening to the strings. I up the tension till the tone is clear and not too twangy. The tuner won’t strain to get there. Then I try the other strings till they’re in that good sounding place. Then put your tuner on and find out where that is. I seem to wind up in a key that feels right for the neck length and body length. I think guitars are like harmonicas. Some are high pitched and some low. You have to have guits for every key just like the harmonica man.

Comment by AGP # on September 8, 2019 at 10:34am: "Thanks Rev Denim", I consider The McDonald Patent Universal String Tension Calculator as my Bible for all things relating to String Gauges and Tension, and use it on all my Builds.

Have spent a bit of time on there this morning, and will probably change the Strings to .032/.022/.014/.010/ and the Tuning to CGCG, with the option of also tuning to DADA or Std Tenor Tuning of CGDA, should work ? ;-)

Comment by Gary W aka Rev. Bluejeans on September 8, 2019 at 8:27am: Alan - there are string tension calculators on the internet (Stew-Mac and others). I'd suggest finding the parameters (gauge, scale length, note) that you like on another build, and try to adjust those to yield the same tensions for the strings in this one (basically changing the gauge with the new guitar's parameters). Hope that makes sense? Once you find out the tension in a set-up that you like, you can avoid having too low or too high tensions on this new build. Pretty gitty, BTW!