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#1
02-17-2016, 01:14 PM
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(Slightly) different stringing for a Mandola
I built a mandola a few years ago with a 17-7/8" scale length. It is tuned D-A-E-B, and was designed to use the same strings as a mandolin and have the same tuning and scale length as a mandolin when capoed at the fifth fret. It's worked out well for me.
Recently I replaced the strings, and instead of using unison tuning on the four lower strings, I made them tuned an octave apart, like a twelve-string guitar's lower strings. Like a 12-string, it brings out the highs. I found that I could use the same gauge strings for the high D and the E, and for the high A and the B, since the two strings are so close to the same pitch. You might want to give it a go. My next experiment is to tune one of my standard mandolins the same way, just to see what it sounds like.
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Yamaha FG-411-12 String Oscar Teller 7119 classical (built in 1967) and a bunch of guitars and mandolins I've made ... OM, OO, acoustic bass, cittern, octave mandolin, mandola, etc. ... some of which I've kept. 
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#2
02-26-2016, 08:24 PM
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update: I found that Musicmakers Kits now routinely strings their octave mandolins that way. I guess I'm not as unconventional as I thought I was.
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Yamaha FG-411-12 String Oscar Teller 7119 classical (built in 1967) and a bunch of guitars and mandolins I've made ... OM, OO, acoustic bass, cittern, octave mandolin, mandola, etc. ... some of which I've kept.
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