Tricone string question

Stuart Berlinicke · From: Baltimore,Maryland, USA

Hello, I am looking forward to the arrival of a Republic tricone and wanted to start out in low G tuning ( high to low D B G D G D).
The republic website says they recommend the 13-56 Curt Mangan set # 31356 but it appears to be for the high g set up.
I have the Brozman homespun lesson that I am going to attempt to work through that uses the low g set up and wanted advice on getting the proper 5th and 6th string tension correct.
I am new to resonator guitars and wanted to know if there are any things I should be aware of, or look out for
Thanks so much for any advice

Stuart

Eric Dahlhoff · From: Point Arena, California

You'll probably want to bump the high D up to a 15 otherwise it will feel too soft. And maybe bump the low D up to a 58 or 59 if it feels too soft. But try it as-is first.
Have fun!
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Stuart Berlinicke · From: Baltimore,Maryland, USA

I appreciate the advice Eric.
I normally use the Jerry Byrd string gauge chart with my electrics and didn’t want to risk any damage to the cones etc.
Thanks again for your help!

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

Square neck or round neck? Steel, slide, fretted, or mixed? Square neck can take more tension generally. I generally prefer more tension for steel or strictly slide, or somewhat lower tension for fretted or mixed slide/fretted playing.

I personally have a Chinese-made round neck 25.5" scale tricone that I use primarily for mixed fretted/slide playing, but also works OK if I play on lap with a steel bar and an extension nut. I generally tune open A, lo-hi E A E A C# E, one whole tone higher than low open G you're talking about. String gauges are pretty comfortable at 14, 16p, 20w, 28, 45, 58. Comes to around 30 pounds per string, more or less. Those gauges are pretty loose for low open G, to my tastes - something like 22-23 pounds per string.

I specifically figure out my own gauges for nonpedal steel or slide guitar in this type of tuning - I haven't found anything in sets that works for me. If the middle strings are reasonable, strings 1 and 6 are way too loose, and if strings 1 and 6 are reasonable, the middle strings are too tight.

I typically use a string tension calculator like this one, for example - https://tension.stringjoy.com/. If the neck can take it, I go for in the ballpark of 30 pounds per string, plus or minus. For low open G, I get gauges in the ballpark of 15, 17p, 24w, 32, 48, 64 or 65. So for that Curt Mangan set, the middle strings will be in the ballpark, but string 1 is too light, and string 6 is way too light for me. Kind of tough finding anything like 64 or 65 in bronze/phosphor bronze. I typically use nickel for slide, no problem getting those. I buy strings for these guitars in bulk, but they can be had as singles.

Stuart Berlinicke · From: Baltimore,Maryland, USA

Very helpful Dave- very much appreciated.
I should have mentioned that it is a metal squareneck import made by Republic.
I will order a variety of packs to get started and then fine tune the string choices. I’m not sure which tuning I’ll ultimately end up with but the Brozman lesson seemed like a good place to start. I was concerned about putting too much pressure on the cones and am grateful for the help this forum provides.
I may want to try out your A tuning suggestion as well.
Do metal squareneck guitars handle going between different tunings well, or do they prefer to remain in one tuning more or less?
Thanks again,
Stuart

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

I think you'll likely be pleased with the Republic. I've played a number of them the last several years, both round and square neck. For the money, I really like the ones I've played. In fact, my tricone (Aiersi - there was a guy, who I assume was a rep, here 8-9 years ago pushing these on the forum) is really surprisingly good. I got it used, it's a 14-fret cutaway.

I think a properly made square neck is more impervious to changes in string tension than a round neck. As long as the neck joint is strong, the neck should not mind a pretty strong tension. But as you point out, it's not a good idea to load the cones too much. But I think they should handle quite a bit of tension. For me, on a National-Steel type of resonator, not enough tension and the cones don't get driven hard enough - too much tension and equilibrium position of the cone is driven too far off-center and volume/tone suffer. Of course, you don't want to let the tension get so high that you damage the cone - I have seen that with way too high tensions. This is one of the reasons I'm moderately obsessive with getting balanced tensions on all the strings, to both get the maximum per-string tension without putting too much overall tension on either the neck or cones, or have too much pressure concentrated at one or two points on the bridge. That Aiersi came with pretty heavy-gauge bronze strings, and not only did the tension on the middle strings seem too heavy, it just didn't sound as good to me. When I put a balanced set on there, the overall tension was lower but it was louder and sounded better.

I think my tricone likes the open A tuning a lot because of it being a 14-fret cutaway with perhaps just a slightly less wide body than the standard non-cutaway 12-fret models. But it sounds good in open G too. I like that guitar so much that I went whole hog and put a 60s Gibson-made mini-humbucker from a Silvertone Chris Isaak model that came from a trashed guitar from my old guitar store. the guitar is totally gig-worthy, and the pickup is sufficiently microphonic that it picks up quite a bit of the cone sound, which works great mixed in with the magnetic pickup sound.

D Schubert · From: Columbia, MO, USA

I owned a Johnson (import) square neck Tri-cone for a while. I used Dobro-gauge strings with no apparent problems. 0.015 or 0.016" for the high D string
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Stuart Berlinicke · From: Baltimore,Maryland, USA

Thanks guys for all the helpful information -I ordered the John Pearce G set (16-59), but mu will order some singles as well in an effort to dial in the string tension where they are evenly balanced. I will give an update on the guitar after some trial and error.
Thanks again!
Stuart

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