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Old 10-16-2016, 10:12 PM
Mandobart Mandobart is online now
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Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Washington State
Posts: 5,428
Default Backwards Conversion

I've never seen this question asked before - I just googled it and got only the reverse of what I'm about to ask.

I'm contemplating a mandocello to guitar conversion - the exact opposite of what is usually discussed here and on mandolincafe. Here is why:

I have an Eastman MDC 805 mandocello. It is basically an Eastman archtop guitar (the fret markers are for guitar, not mando) with a nut, tailpiece and bridge modified for 4 pairs of strings instead of 6. It sounds great and is fun to play, BUT I have a much better custom built F4 style archtop 10 string mandocello that gets all my attention now. I was going to sell my Eastman 'cello to finance the purchase of a nice archtop. A friend who was interested in my Eastman is interested no longer, so I thought "for the cost of a few $$ and hours time I could make a new nut, fit and slot a new bridge and have an Eastman archtop guitar."

So here is the question for fellow guitarists - if you could string up a guitar with 8 strings, how would you string it? F to A with one empty slot? Standard tuning with double courses on the B and E? Or other ideas I haven't thought of? Thanks!
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