I picked up a cheapie Caramel baritone uke to do exactly this! I calculated out two string sets for it--cello CGDA and octave mandolin GDAE. After stringing it up as a cello first, I felt like the body wasn't big enough to let the low notes resonate cleanly the way I wanted them to, and switched to OM. That tuning feels better to me on an instrument this size, and the GDAE uke is one of my favorite instruments I've ever played.
I gave the first-round proto to my dad, and I've got a nicer Ohana baritone coming (should arrive today!) for phase two. But now I have to find a larger donor four-string instrument to convert to a ukecello.
Anyway, this thread was instrumental (har) to getting me going on the process, so Seter and ondrej, I'm glad to see you're still hacking away like I am. And if you find a nice 23, maybe 24-inch scale instrument to convert to a bigger ukecello, shoot me a heads-up
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