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Vintage threads from the first ten years

Fret Wear?

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1/19/2000 4:20 PM

Hi all:

I don't know much about his, but... I've got a strat plus that I bought in Jan. 1994. I've string bent it to death with 11 gauge strings, and the jumbo frets have significant wear on the treble side from about the 5th fret on up to 12th or higher. My Standard (made in Mexico) strat has small 'vintage' style frets and very little wear. It plays so much better, as far as getting a real chunky grip on a string when bending. I want my Strat Plus to play like this, the way it use to (or at least I think it use to)... Anybody else experienced this?

What can one do about fret wear? Can a re-crown, leveling, polishing (whatever--help me out here) help solve the problem? Or is it silly to think that jumbo frets have significantly worn in only 6 years and the problem is attributed to something else? Most importantly, I'm concerned about the price of whatever job may be recommended.

thanks,
Mike

1/19/2000 5:19 PM

Frets wear. It's the nature of the beast. Scraping a stiring across the surface, doing bends, will wear them faster. Minor wear can be compensated for by leveling & re-dressing all frets on the fingerboard. Major wear requires fret replacement. Consider frets as wearable parts. Play a lot (that's what guitars are for), use heavy strings and a heavy hand, you get worn frets.

It's hard to beleive that your strat plus and your mexican standard are the same age and played the same amount for the fret wear to be so significantly different.

1/19/2000 8:27 PM

Doc:

Sorry to be confusing... My strat plus is 6 years old. My Standard is a 96 I bought used that looked like it hadn't been played at all, so for all intents and purposes, it has been played very little. Hence the nearly non-worn nature of the frets. Didn't mean to imply that they were both the same age or that jumbo frets or strat pluses in particular suffer differently from fret wear.

Now that I know it may possibly help, I'm going to check into how much they are charging downtown for some maintenance on the worn frets.

thanks,
mike

1/20/2000 4:17 PM
Jim S.	Speaking from experience (both good and bad): Fretwork is definitely one area where you don't want to simply go with the lowest bidder. On a guitar, the frets area where the rubber meets the road!

1/25/2000 3:51 PM
marrk	I totally agree. I just got my 92 ES335 back from a "full set up" Level, crown, polish all frets, set action, adjust truss etc. It came to $100. A little high I have heard, but I have had work done by this person before, and his work is worth it. The guitar sounds better too. Mark

1/26/2000 4:34 PM
Jim S.	I'd say $100 for a level and crown is cheap!! To do that job really well requires hours of hard work under a bright light!

1/20/2000 3:53 AM
Bob	I dress my frets on heavy use instruments every two years. Ask around where you live and get a ace repair person to dress those frets for you. Bob

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