stainless steel frets

[almondcity]

I'm considering bring in my beloved for a refret with stainless steel. I guess I'm mostly worried about the luthier screwing something up and also whether I'll like the stainless steel frets

Anyone got SS here?

 

[spi]

I have one guitar with SS. It's fine... I don't detect a major difference in feel like some people do, but it does seem slightly slicker if you A/B compare. I just don't get excited it about because I hardly notice after a minute--it's not like nickel is not slick enough.

And I don't know if it changed the tone because it came that way. But I've heard that it can make your guitar brighter--something to consider if you're doing a refret.

I see the main advantage as less fret wear, and this may make it worth it, especially if you're getting heavy fret wear.

 

[Mentaltossflycoon]

Definitely more wear and tear than tonal differences in my experience/shop lore. I don't use them on my own instruments but I have a relatively light touch with my left hand.

Fret work is fairly pedestrian stuff to a luthier, if you don't trust them to do frets I wouldn't let them touch anything else.

 

[peccary]

Definitely more wear and tear than tonal differences in my experience/shop lore. I don't use them on my own instruments but I have a relatively light touch with my left hand.

Fret work is fairly pedestrian stuff to a luthier, if you don't trust them to do frets I wouldn't let them touch anything else.

Quick subject change:
Have you ever done the Lee Sklar thing with banjo frets on a bass? I've always been interested in that but it's such a commitment. I love super low actions and have a genreally light touch so I always thought they'd work well for me.

 

[Mentaltossflycoon]

I haven't, though I've actually considered it a few times. Hard to commit an entire neck to experimentation, I guess.

 

[almondcity]

thanks for the opinions

this guitar has some divots in the frets at the lower end and it will need work eventually, it's definitely still playable but I feel like this could be the last modification I ever need to make to it so why not get it out of the way

 

[jubal81]

I had that done to my Rickenbacker about 7 years ago and I'm glad I did. No visible wear whatsoever and I never noticed any difference in tone.

 

[MichaelW]

I am not a fan of Stainless Steel frets. I've had a few guitars with them and never bonded with them. My Suhr Classic S was one.

I may be an outlier, but to me it's just feels a bit off, and sounds a bit sterile. All makes sense on paper, low wear, keeps a high polish well, but somehow it just doesn't feel or sound right to me. I prefer standard nickel frets.

Also, since I do all my own fretwork, stainless is a biotch to work with and kills your tools....

 

[Mentaltossflycoon]

I am not a fan of Stainless Steel frets. I've had a few guitars with them and never bonded with them. My Suhr Classic S was one.

I may be an outlier, but to me it's just feels a bit off, and sounds a bit sterile. All makes sense on paper, low wear, keeps a high polish well, but somehow it just doesn't feel or sound right to me. I prefer standard nickel frets.

Also, since I do all my own fretwork, stainless is a biotch to work with and kills your tools....

Yes. That's another reason I'm thankful for regular "Bb" fret wire. My files are my babies.

 

[MichaelW]

Yes. That's another reason I'm thankful for regular "Bb" fret wire. My files are my babies.

I just wrapped up a fret level, crown and polish on a "soon to be posted" NGD post. Thankful I wasn't working with SS frets hahahah. Since I just did the fret job on my Tele build a couple weeks ago it was all fresh in my mind and went pretty quickly. Might be 3 years before a do another fret level and crown

On another note, probably the coolest recent fret tool purchase I made was this gizmo from Stew Mac. Holy crap it was obscenely expensive but man it's SUCH a life saver when you need to deal with a single or couple of high frets without needing to do a "spot leveling".

 

[Mentaltossflycoon]

Just like a lot of things there, if it actually looks useful it's going to have a crazy ass price tag. Don't lose that thing!

 

[Alan W]

I’m a big fan of SS frets. I have 2 partscasters with them, and both get played a lot. After 2 years, the polish is still there! I think the additional slinkyness (no different than an immediately dressed and polished NS would be) that just stays that way, is hard to give up. I also think my strings last about 20% longer with SS frets. I can’t comment on any additional brightness that the frets may add, since the necks came that way.

SS should not affect tooling made with properly hardened tool steel. Any file that dulls with stainless that much faster, is not a good file. That’s one reason good files are expensive.

 

[Brett]

I've had only one neck with stainless steel frets and while it did play very smooth, I also had a difficult time bonding with it.

I sold that neck and ordered another, but this time I ordered the neck with Jescar's EVO gold fretwire and a lovely amazon rosewood fingerboard. This combo ended up being the perfect compromise between the longevity of SS and the comfort of nickel.

Regardless of your decision, I hope that you end up very happy! If you do decide to stick with nickel frets, ask your luthier to use Jescar fret wire (or an equivalent higher-quality brand). Some nickel fret wire is made better than others.

 

[almondcity]

I ended up ordering a SS fret neck from Warmoth so I'll see how I like it soon. Thanks all

 

[jeffwhitfield]

Question: Is there such thing as titanium frets? I would think they would hold up really well over time and feel pretty good.

 

[Pauleo1214]

Question: Is there such thing as titanium frets? I would think they would hold up really well over time and feel pretty good.

There are but not much difference between them and stainless steel.

https://www.philadelphialuthiertools.com/sintoms-titanium/

The benefits of stainless steel as others noted here is the durability. If you play your guitar every single day, it is worth the investment. That said, they are a pain in the ass to install, level, and crown compared to traditional nickel silver. You need diamond crowning and fret files to work stainless steel; the cost of those tools and the increased labor will be passed onto you if you go through with a stainless steel refret.

For those who said they notice a difference in materials, it is likely a difference in the quality of the fret crowning and polishing job and not the material. For instance, I make sure my frets are crowned to profile and will use micromesh to sand them up to 12,000 grit. Then I will use my dremel tool to run four grades of polishing compound.