Nylon strings

[Richard Francis]

I have just acquired an old bowlback mandolin and wonder how it would sound with nylon strings. Anyone have any experience with them?

[Kathy-a]

Hi Richard,
I'm no expert and your vintage bowlback deserves special attention but I just started using nylon strings and I absolutely love the sound! I just purchased the Vita soprano ukulele from Elderly Instruments. It's a hybrid uke that has the scale length of a soprano uke (14 in.) and the rather larger body of the concert uke (10 1/2 in.). I had the uke restrung with Aquila Nylgut strings (30U) designed for fifths tuning. My mandolin repertoire sounds beautiful and the softness of the strings is a delight for my fingers. I believe Aquila also has concert uke size nylon strings for fifths tuning. You might want to see if your bowlback has a scale length close to either of these ukes and get the appropriate nylon strings. I hope this is of some help -bottom line the nylon string mandolin is another beautiful instrument.

[Jacob]

I have the Aquila 5ths soprano & concert sets mentioned above on ukuleles with pleasing results. Haven't tried their mandolin set.

[jhowell]

I have Aquila Nylgut strings on both my soprano and tenor ukes. I like them, also.

[ProfChris]

I use Aquila Nylguts on my ukes, and they are great for Tin Pan Alley/Jazz playing. But this is because they generate quite a lot of off-note overtones. If you want a "purer" sound, as many uke players do, then fluorocarbon strings are what you need to try. I don't offhand know of a 5th set in fluorocarbon but there must be one out there - a post on Ukuleleunderground.com would find out. Alternatively you could buy single strings to make up a set, if you can work out the diameters you need.

Or, on reflection, buy the Aquila set and go with that sound

[Kathy-a]

Hi again,
You may find Bob Clarks reply (8/1/16) to the "Nylon strings for mandolin?" thread in the the "Looking for info" forum very very helpful.