Tenor Guitar for GDAE Irish Tunes recommendations?

[Lord of the Badgers]

I have a Buchanan - it's pretty decent - it's the shorter scale though.
When I got it, it had a really nice weighty set of strings on it. I then got a Pearse set and am not nearly as happy - but I don't know what the previous set were. they were Phosphor Bronze, that's all i know!

Met a cool luthier guy called Colin Kendall the other day at Sidmouth Folk Festival (UK in case you're wondering). Nice guy. Wish I'd tried his tenor - it looked really nice.
http://www.colinkendallguitars.co.uk/folk.htm
[edit] did he really mean to spell bouzouki that way???![/edit]

[Alyx Hanson]

FWIW, I started with an octave mando that had a ~21.5" scale. It met a sad end over the winter when I got stuck outside waiting for a bus on a stupidly cold day. I wound up getting a Blueridge BR-40T to replace it, and while the scale is longer, it wasn't as much of an adjustment as I expected. My ideal instrument would be a touch shorter, probably, but it's definitely possible to switch from the 21" range to the 23" range without *too* much trouble.

[dave in sac]

Hi, has anyone tried tuning a Kala tenor guitar GDAE. If so what gauge strings did you end up using? I have one on order and want to go that direction.
Thanks!
dave-

[fox]

The Karla has a 21.5" scale so 14p 20w 32w 48w would work well.

[nkforster]

How about one of these?



Osage orange and European spruce Session King short scale tenor?

n

[dave in sac]

Thanks for the info!

[dmcginnis]

Nigel - that is one good looking guitar! I hope you will post more about it.

I ended up getting a 1930 era Regal tenor guitar, spruce top over mahogany (probably Cuban) back/sides. Once I got string gauges that were good for GDAE tuning, this little guitar sounded amazing. I am still getting used to it and the location where I pick the strings makes a big difference in tonality quality and sustain; regardless, it it a great little guitar with a lot of potential.

Cheers,
Dave