This is my take on a cheap way to get Johhny Gimble's 4 string tuning on an electric mandolin! This tuning is A D G C on the high to low strings so it drops the traditional high E string and adds a low C string. Of course I also strung this up with only 4 strings instead of 8 using the following gauges:
- A - .011"
- D - .020"
- G - .030"
- C - .048"
I bought regular steel guitar single stings, cut off the ball and wrapped string ends, looped the ends and added a new twist to lock it in. It ain't pretty but it works! As you can see in the pictures below, I used two cheap $75 mandolins to make one good one. The One that had an electric pickup (Wesley model) also had a severely mislocated nut and a warped neck. I removed the electronics from this mandolin and the pickguard from the target mandolin (Rogue). Then I drilled holes in the target mandolin for the jack and volume control and used a Dremel tool to rough out the pickup opening. The old mandolin was given to a friend who likes to restore these and the new one is now hanging up with my guitar collection.
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