The 1895 era American Conservatory bowl back mandolin I purchased a couple months ago finally has new strings.

I was nervous about restringing her, but she was quite supportive for the whole procedure. Mandolin strings have a loop at one end of that hooks onto raised metal tabs. I changed out pairs of strings, one set at a time, so that I didn’t move the bridge. I used cheesecloth to wipe away the dust, but did not do a deep clean or try anything aggressive.

I am also experimenting with alternative tuning. I tuned to DGBE, as the top four strings of a guitar are tuned. These notes are lower than typical mandolin GDAE tuning and make the strings softer to press. Plus, it might make learning chords transferable to guitar. So far the mandolin is accepting the new tuning, and when all the strings are tuned, she still resonates with my voice. New strings take a long time to settle in and require frequent tuning. I will also keep a close eye on her construction to make sure the new tuning doesn’t cause stress damage.