Electric Strings on an acoustic?

This is probably a seriously dumb question, but is it ever a good idea (or even possible) to put heavier electric guitar strings on an acoustic?

I have an old arch top I put electric strings on, works OK. it even sounds decent (not great) acoustically, but if it didn't have a magnetic pickup, I run acoustic strings on it.
so I guess the answer is it may not be a good idea, but you can do it

I always put EB "Beefy Slinky" on my cheap resonator (with the plain 3rd swapped for a 0.024 wound) - it sounds great and the strings last for ages. I started using them because the guitar sounded a bit "thin" with bronze strings.

i did that to my kay archtop 2 days ago. sounds really good on mine:grin:

i tried it a long time ago, and it sounded pretty good when the strings were fresh. but they would wear out stunningly fast!

on acoustic guitar as well as electric when I lived in SoCal and wanted to change my strings more often so I started buying Ernie Ball Slinkys in the 10-46 range as they were much cheaper than buying acoustic strings, sounded decent, and if I needed to play an acoustic lead I'd have an unwrapped G string to bend. I also used electric strings for a folk size Yamaha guitar I had on which I'd have strings 3 through 6 an octave higher for some rhythm parts. They were like the higher octave strings on a 12 string guitar...........JH in Va.

uses nickel strings on Clarence White's old acoustic!

http://www.acousticguitar.net/daquisto/tr.html

They sound pretty good and Tony doesn't suck!

Johnny Isaacs

what about electric strings on a nylon string classical guitar. would this eat through the bridge

uses nickel strings on Clarence White's old acoustic!

http://www.acousticguitar.net/daquisto/tr.html

They sound pretty good and Tony doesn't suck!

Johnny Isaacs

Merle Travis used Nickel wound on his old D-28 w/ the Paul Bigsby Neck...and so does his Son, Thom Bresh....they say (said) it just suited that Guitar the Best.

what about electric strings on a nylon string classical guitar. would this eat through the bridge

Don't do it. I have a friend who has a cheap classical guitar he used to put electric strings on... it ate away at the frets (they were made to handle nylon....) and you can't play anything past the 6th fret now. I'm sure that's only the beginning of a long list of problems...

Classical Guitars are not designed to take the tension of metal strings...fret wear would be the last of my worries...what would likely happen would be the bridge separating from the top..Forget Nike and Just Dont Do It!