Fret wire - What hould I get

[überfuzz]

I have an old guitar that I really like, resent years I more or less only used it to play slide on. Now I thought I'd refret it, but haven't got a clue on what alloy I should get.

If anyone would enlighten me or post some pointers.

Cheers!

[soundguruman]

STEWMAC.COM : Stewart-MacDonald Fretwire


you need to remove and measure the old fret wire, the slot, width and depth of the slot.
you need to find wire which is similar, or cut the slot for a different wire....
the slot should be cut to grab the wire. as you can see, forcing larger wire into a narrower slot may turn out badly.
forcing narrower wire in to larger slot, etc...check the measurements first...

Fret wire can have many variations of sizes, different depth tangs and thickness tangs,
you might have thought that the sizes would be standardized, but it's not that way.

Guitar player really wants a tall fret. And a fret which is shaped at a peak. That's a crown, so to speak.
Some fret wire comes pre-shaped....

[überfuzz]

I pretty much got that covered. Both I don't know much about the material, or the materials hardness if you will. There seems to be different alloys in the fret wire that's shipping. I've been looking for info on that.

[David Schwab]

Most of the tangs that go into the slots are the same size, but the crown will be different. Unless you are dealing with very small wire, like for mandolins.

Most fretwire is nickel silver. It doesn't mater where you get it from. The wire Stew-Mac sells is good. I've been using it for about 30 years. The other two available alloys are stainless steel, and "Evo gold".

Stainless steel is more difficult to work with because it's very hard. Diamond surface files work best. The new Evo wire is harder than nickel silver, and easier to work with than SS.

You can get all three types from Luthier's Mercantile.

This page has a lot of god info:

Fretwire - Information and Pricing at LMI

[überfuzz]

David Schwab - Thanks for the insight!!

Is the SS alloy the alloy with longest life span?

[David Schwab]

David Schwab - Thanks for the insight!!

Is the SS alloy the alloy with longest life span?

You're welcome.

Yeah, I guess SS will last the longest. It's the hardest. I've been using nickel silver frets for years on my basses, and I use stainless steel strings, and they last pretty long too.

I plan on trying the Evo fretwire at some point.

[the great waldo]

Hi David

Have you tried the Jescar fretwire ? I have been on the hunt for fretwire that was as hard and lasted as long as the old wire that used to come from Gibson (I'm talking about 30 years ago when I started guitar making) The stainless wire is super hard but a bit of a pain to work with. The evo stuff is similar to the old hard wire, but a little more brittle (I noticed that using the fret tang nippers)and gold (just) If you have any knowledge of suppliers of good hard fretwire with decent shaping i'm all ears.

Cheers

Andrew

[tedmich]

I bought some (I believe Jescar) SS fretwire from Bernie Tusko (Fretguru) on Ebay a few years back, had no problems with it and unless you're doing shop work the high dollar tools are overkill. The tang needs to fit snug and some fretwire is better for "virgin" slots than refrets IME. Refretting (for me) is ALWAYS a PITA so I figured SS was a good choice, it last near forever and the wonderful string bending behavior is a great bonus (more for guitar as few bassists bend strings It does seem to be brighter but I like that; EB Cobalts + SS frets is heaven!