Guitar strings on a tenor banjo?

[ImNotIrish]

I recently heard a story from a friend of mine who claims he met some Canadian musicians who use guitar strings on their tenor banjos. Anyone else heard of this? If so, what gauges, brands, etc?

Arbo

[Thomaston]

Here's what Enda Scahill recommends in his tutorial:
E: .11 or.12 plain steel
A: .16 or .17 wound
D: .25 or .26 wound
G: .34 - .40 wound
It also says he uses guitar strings, nickel wound preferred over bronze wound.

[ImNotIrish]

Here's what Enda Scahill recommends in his tutorial:
E: .11 or.12 plain steel
A: .16 or .17 wound
D: .25 or .26 wound
G: .34 - .40 wound
It also says he uses guitar strings, nickel wound preferred over bronze wound.

Hey,
thanks so much! Any idea why nickle over bronze?
Arbo

[Thomaston]

They tend to hold a good tone longer.
I forgot to say that I haven't personally tried using guitar string yet. I've lately been using octave mandolin strings. Going above .40 for the G string seems to work a bit better for me, too, since my banjo has 17 frets. The one I have on right now is .44, I think.

[Padre]

on banjohangout Enda said that nickel wouded sounds brighter.
At the moment I have guitar strings Dunlop on my short scale Orpheum banjo
G - .040 D - .030 A - .020 (wouded) E - .011
sounds pretty good
all I had to do is get rid of those metal thingies at the end of the loop.
then again few days later I've bought a set of D'Addario strings for Irish bouzouki
and the gauges are pretty similar to gauges that I have on my banjo at the moment
and I'm thinking about checking them out when next time I'll be changing strings.

[Tim2723]

It depends on what we mean when we say guitar string. In common usage, the term usually applies to the ball-end strings most often used on guitars as opposed to the loop end strings most often used on banjos, and also for strings packaged in sets for convenience. If you buy single strings, other than the type of end supplied there is no specific difference between a given string for any application, that is, a string is a guitar string if it's on a guitar, a banjo string if it's on a banjo, etc. Of course, this does not apply to specialized strings for certain instruments. For instance, violin strings are made to the specific length of a violin because they are supplied with special end wrappings that are needed on that instrument. But for the majority of the lute family instruments, all the strings come out of the same machines, and any particular diameter, core, winding, or metal alloy can be provided with either ball or loop ends, and thus become guitar strings, banjo strings, mandolin strings, bouzouki strings, you name it. In some cases the string is cut to a shorter length for ecconomy, but the string material itself is not different.

Ball end 'guitar' strings can be used on any banjo whose tailpiece can accomodate them. Many banjo tailpieces have only tabs that hold loop ends, but others have holes or slots that can secure a ball end string. Some players will remove the 'ball' from a string and turn it into a loop end string. Some tenor banjo players buy eight string sets of octave mandolin strings and get two sets for slightly more than the price of one set of banjo strings.