Official Luthiers Forum!

Rather than using plastic coated strings made for baritone (that everyone complains the lowest bass string sounds weak, if not amplified), how about using regular Phosphor Bronze (uncoated) heavy gauge strings? Seems like they should be long enough. But what do they sound like when dropped down to B E A D F# B? I don't have a guitar with nut slots wide enough to try it. But, I'll bet someone has. (Have you, Dave White?) Anyone care to comment?

D'Addario EJ18 Phosphor Bronze Heavy Acoustic Guitar Strings set gauge:
.014, .018, .027, .039, .049, .059

D'Addario EXP23 Coated Phosphor Bronze Baritone Acoustic Guitar Strings set gauge:
.016, .022, .029, .048, .060, .070

Thanks,

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

Dennis,

Yes I have. My views - and choice- of string gauges for baritones is not in line with most baritone builders. Rather than re-iterate old ground, have a peruse of this old thread. Lots of views and interesting stuff.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Dave, thanks for the reply, and for the link to the previous thread. You know, that thread was pretty recent, and I read it - I should have remembered it. What in blazes happened to my memory?

"...a set of D'Addatio EJ 18's with the bottom string replaced by a 70 gives great acoustic tone in B-B..."

Whose .070 string are you using for the lowest? Is it the same coated .070 from the D'Addario EXP bari set? Or, the plain Phosphor Bronze? Those individual strings from JustStrings are MIGHTY expensive ($4.44 to $6.73 per one string!) Anyone have a good source?

I see about $6 for the EJ18 set, and another $4.44 for the .070 Phosphor Bronze, which I guess is not too terrible. (Though I won't be changing as frequently as I have allowed myself with my bulk D'Addario's I bought last year.)

Thanks!

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

G'day Dennis,

I just strung up my second weissenborn copy last night and I have used John Pearce Weissenborn strings and have it tuned to open C and it feels and sound brilliant. Sassie my other weissenborn copy has medium gauge acoustic strings tuned to open D and the feel of the guitars are the same. I can not see any reason why you could'nt use the weissenborn strings for a baritione guitar.

I bought two sets of the John Pearce acoustic phosphor bronze strings to experiment with, one is a set #3120 G tuning 15 18 27w 39 47 58 and the other is #3160 D tuning 15 18 27w 38 48 60.

I have used the heavier set but tuned to Open C. Wasn't game to tune my new git to open D with those monsters on. I think they work well in open C

Dennis I am very interesed in your baritone guitar. Can you tell me what you have built please and some detail.

Cheers

Alan

Dennis, buy strings from John P, you can get his open F set which is great or just have Mary make up sets for you
the price is great too!
Lance

Hi Alan, thanks for the John Pearse string recommendation. Good to have more options, as I have been happy with D'Addario phosphor bronze lights now for years, for steelstrings at "normal" string lengths.

My Baritone guitar is not much further along than a "glint in my eye", a few CAD drawings, and the back (curly Katalox) and soundboard (Lutz/Lutzii/Kermodie/A La Modie) pieces have been joined. I started a thread on the Luthierforum to document the progress ("Grace Baritone"), but it is actually in the queue behing a "stretched parlor" and a sorta OM-sized guitar.

Dennis



Thanks, Lance, I will definitely check into that option!

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia