For those who seek a flatwound ball-end mandolin string, fear not...

Even though the JM10B JazzMando strings have been discontinued here, there is talk of them being ressurected by another string dealer. We'll certainly keep you abreast of developments once they become official.

Meantime, there are two sources for flatwound ball end electric, one our "sister" website from Martin Stillion www.Emando.com, who sells ball-end, loop-end, and an assortment of bronze and steel for some of the rest of the mandolin family in tested gauges. Visit his site for pricing information.

The other is to build your own out of D'Addario flatwound Chrome Series electric guitar strings. We sold these prior to the JM10B for Mandobirds, and eventually throug our work with D'Addario became the starting point for the D'Addario flatwound FW74 loop end strings.

These are the gauges the plain steel singles and flatwound Chrome singles come in. This is great if you want to customize your own, and since they are guitar scale, you should be able to use these in longer mandolin family instruments like mandola, octave mandolin, bouzouki, and mandocello.

Keep in mind your set will be made of plain singles, generally sold in 10-packs, and the wound ones in 5-packs.

Plain steel strings
Item # Product
PL007 Single Plain Steel 007
PL008 Single Plain Steel 008
PL0085 Single Plain Steel 0085
PL009 Single Plain Steel 009
PL0095 Single Plain Steel 0095
PL010 Single Plain Steel 010
PL0105 Single Plain Steel 0105
PL011 Single Plain Steel 011
PL0115 Single Plain Steel 0115
PL012 Single Plain Steel 012
PL013 Single Plain Steel 013
PL0135 Single Plain Steel 0135
PL014 Single Plain Steel 014
PL015 Single Plain Steel 015

Flatwound strings
Item # Product
CG020 Single XL Chromes Flat Wound 020
CG022 Single XL Chromes Flat Wound 022
CG024 Single XL Chromes Flat Wound 024
CG026 Single XL Chromes Flat Wound 026
CG028 Single XL Chromes Flat Wound 028
CG030 Single XL Chromes Flat Wound 030
CG032 Single XL Chromes Flat Wound 032
CG035 Single XL Chromes Flat Wound 035
CG038 Single XL Chromes Flat Wound 038
CG040 Single XL Chromes Flat Wound 040
CG042 Single XL Chromes Flat Wound 042
CG045 Single XL Chromes Flat Wound 045
CG048 Single XL Chromes Flat Wound 048
CG050 Single XL Chromes Flat Wound 050
CG052 Single XL Chromes Flat Wound 052
CG056 Single XL Chromes Flat Wound 056
CG065 Single XL Chromes Flat Wound 065
CG075 Single XL Chromes Flat Wound 075
CG080 Single XL Chromes Flat Wound 080

You can read about availability and pricing here:
Ball-end plain Singles
XL Chromes Flat Wound Singles

Read about using these to build your own custom loop-end sets.

Posted by Ted at August 2, 2013 10:03 AM