John Cohen

I just came across Mason hard nylon leader. It comes in all the right diameters- anybody have experience with it?

One of the top professional players used Andover monofilament in the '50s, but that brand seems to have gone defunct long ago.

I don't think I'm at risk of breaking strings.. The nylon-strung banjo is a low tension instrument with rather floppy strings. The historical gauges were 10lb, 15lb, and 20lb line, but the line was the harder wirey nylon. It was all monofilament- not copolymer. Stren feels and sounds pretty good, and the tension is the same as the Trilene I tried. I was surprised by that, since I thought Stren would be lower tension. Maybe a lot of the properties of the nylon that are relevant to fishing go out the window when its strung up to pitch on a musical instrument? By the way, I use Trilene Big Game when I fish, but it made for terrible instrument strings. It doesn't intonate well. I'm surprised Stren has good intonation since it certainly doesn't feel like it has a consistent diameter.

I've looked at weed whacker line before and it doesn't come in small gauges. Light nylon for those is around 0.065", whereas the string diameters I need are in the .012"-.022" range. Stren has been pretty good, but I'd love to find the harder stuff. Fluorocarbon is a no-go... it doesn't as good and is much higher in tension.

Hello, I'm a fingerstyle banjoist rediscovering early banjo setups. After Dupont introduced nylon in 1938, banjoists started to use it. I'm trying to find out which modern fishing lines use the same or similar nylon formula as the early (pre-Stren) line, and of these options which brand has the most consistent diameter. I'm currently using Stren... didn't have much luck with Trilene. I'm told that the early monofilament was harder and more wirey than Stren, and wasn't as thin pound for pound. Thanks for your help.