nylon strings in Gypsy Jazz

Michael Bauer

Bob Holo or Rodrigo Shopis could speak on this with much more expertise than I can, but given that the general idea is to keep the guitar, or at least the soundbox, as light as possible to allow it to resonate, a nylon string guitar will usually be built with lighter bracing inside, since nylon strings force much less tension on the top than steel strings do, especially around the bridge. Classical guitars and flamenco guitars are built specifically to use nylon strings (as are lutes, for that matter). Also classical guitars use fan bracing on the top, where every gypsy guitar I have encountered uses ladder bracing.

You can put nylon strings on a steel string guitar and it will play. I would think the string tension with nylons would be too low to get a steel string guitar to perform at its best, but a couple of guys here have said they've tried it with some success. But never reverse the process. If you put steel strings on a classical guitar, for example, it will pretty quickly pull the bridge right off. The extra tension is going to want to fold the guitar in half, and it won't have been built to withstand it.

Jazzaferri

Thomastik make a classic S really high tension string about 10 percent higher than anything else I have found. They come in flatwound steel or flatwound plastic for the uppers including B. expensive but worth it IMO :shock:

Added as aedit

The total pull on the Thomastics is about 93 lbs if memory serves and the Argie lights around 120 maybe a little less.

Tele295

Michael Bauer wrote:

What surprises me about all these conversions we are discussing, is how anyone is getting enough string tension to keep a floating bridge firmly in place. I would never recommend it, but what the heck? If it works for you, why not?

I had the same concern, but it turned out not to be a problem on our Cigano GJ15. Maybe some GJ guitars have a shallower neck angle that would further decrease tension

lewshel

See my post about Thomastic Infeld low tension steel for Classical guitars.
There is also a John Pearse model from them which I hope to try.

rafapak

hi

I put nylon strings to my cigano gj 10

NO MORE WAR!

my guitar sounded horrible Thanks God I had one more packet of argies at my disposal. I am never going to try nylon strings on my cigano. Unfortunately I still dream about playing gypsy jazz on nylon strings just like thomas dutronc does

crookedpinky

I sometimes play gypsy stuff on my 1964 Yairi classical strung up with normal classical strings and it sounds perfectly fine. I think theres's a youtube video of a guy playing nuages on a classical as part of a Django tribute concert - it sounds great.

rafapak

crookedpinky wrote:

I sometimes play gypsy stuff on my 1964 Yairi classical strung up with normal classical strings and it sounds perfectly fine. I think theres's a youtube video of a guy playing nuages on a classical as part of a Django tribute concert - it sounds great.

can you give us a link ? well, I am going to look at youtube anyway but in case I find nothing please, provide link

Shawn

Rafapak,

I think your problem may lie in that you put those strings on a guitar that just didn't fit the bill for accepting Nylons. If I'm not mistaken the GJ-10 is the long scale oval hole...the scale length alone would have been the deterring factor for me. That's not to say a long scale guitar can't accept Nylon strings, but with Selmers in particular were talking about guitars generally designed for only one musical purpose. The oval hole itself wouldn't have allowed some of the bassier tones and warmth to be projected as well as a short scale D hole, just because of the amount of air allowed to escape from the soundhole.

All in all, I think you may have just chosen the wrong guitar to put the Nylon strings on...some guitars just aren't designed to accept certain things, while others are.

rafapak

got it!