Stainless steel refrets

[tadej bratkovic]

Hi all,

I will soon be doing my first SS refret on a Strat and while searching for some good info on the internet it only confused me a bit further.

I have already dealt with EVO gold and had great results, so I hope this matters at least a tiny bit.

I can press or hammer the frets, but hammering is my preferred method. Should I over-radius or bend it to the exact fretboard radius? There's a lot of different info on this subject, I personally like over-radiusing because the tang bites a little better. Of course even with EVO I exaggerated the over-radius less than with NS.

I pretty much settled on the idea of cutting the wire very short and then just filing the edges without any nipping, but I am still not confident about over-radius, I am very curious what you guys think about it.

If anyone has other helpful tips, please do share.

Thanks in advance, guys.

[Hesh Breakstone]

Hi Tadej:  I don't do anything different when using stainless except worry about my tools....

More specifically stainless can be harder on tools as we all know and where it has bitten me before is using my end nippers on nearly-jumbo stainless wire.  The hardness of the wire ruined my nippers....

When I use medium sized stainless wire my Stew-Mac nippers seem to be able to cut the stuff and remain unscathed.

For radiusing I treat stainless just as I would nickle-silver wire, or evo (great stuff by the way) and simply use a slight over-radius which helps the ends go down and stay down.  Since stainless is less malleable it's likely important to use the proper radius fret caul if pressing.

Lastly although likely controversial... be very, very sure that your client understands that not everyone is thrilled with stainless after trying it.  We seem to hear the glowing recommendations but rarely do I read on-line on Lutherie forums that some folks aren't keen to reap the benefits of stainless.

More specifically in our own informal poll that we did some years ago it seems that in our group 50% loved the stuff and 50% thought that it sounded "tinny...."  And of course there is no telling what camp your or my client will be in until they try it....  One client who is a pro player who makes his living gigging brought back a stainless refret on his custom Tele saying that he thought that it made the gutiar sound tinny....

What are ya going to do.....  So we refretted it for him, again, with EVO and cut him a 50% discount on the second refret.  Nonetheless the client, who knows his stuff very well, was willing to pay for 1.5 fret jobs just to get the stainless frets off his guitar.  Just thought that I would mention this in so much as no one likes to bust their butt doing great work only to have the client unhappy with something beyond our control.

Hope this helps.

[tadej bratkovic]

So I guees if I do it like I did EVO in the past, I'll be good? Fortunately I won't be nipping the ends, I rather spend an afternoon filing it down since it glides smoothly there will probably be less chance of prying the fret out this way.

I know, the tone debate on SS frets is very hot and very diverse. I think 50/50 is fair judgement, but then again, some say it doesn't work with anything, and some say it works very well with Strats and not so good with LPs. No one can really tell what's true, but I am guessing many people got their guitars refretted by very unskilled amateurs too and if a bound LP fingerboards is your first one, I think there will be some problems. I was told by other repair guys that most of the time people complaining SS frets were the times where frets weren't seated enough and just installed in a hurry. And I know guys who changed their opinion over night after reading some threads on the net.

It's a friend's guitar, he wears frets down to sheet thickness in two or three years, that's why I decided to go SS with him. I think I'm gonna do a blind test with him and tell him what I did after he evaluates the results. I will be putting these on my guitar too, but unfortunately it's a maple board, and this one is ebony - pretty darn rare for a Strat!

Thanks for the input, Hesh!

[Hesh Breakstone]

Sounds like a good plan to me and I also like the idea of letting your friend do a blind or at least unknowing test.  Let us know what he thinks?

Beyond everything taking a bit longer because the wire is harder and the concern for tools this has been my only issues with SS frets.  I suspect that hammering them leaves less room for error too in that if one's technique is less than ideal the fret slots could get inadvertently damaged by multiple attempt to seat a single fret.  This may be where pressing has some advantages, I say may be because there aren't many absolutes in Lutherie.

Good luck and be ready to have one tired arm.... ;)

[Tim Mace]

Has anyone ever used a diamond grinder on a dremel w/speed control  or is that considered too risky?Personally I don't intend to ever use SS for all the drawbacks I've read in here...I don't really buy the tone comparison stuff .What methods are used to verify that SS sounds better than another well dressed fret?EVO g00d !

[Hesh Breakstone]

Tim buddy I'll be one of the first ones to second your feelings regarding the subjective nature of nearly all things "tone" related.

The problem is not only how stainless frets may or may not sound but there is indeed a perception that some in the general population will at times take a position on.  So like it or not it's a reality that some of us who deal with the public in the repair business have to deal with.

I try to stay neutral and simply convey that in our experience some like em, some don't, and the divide seems to be fairly equal based on our experience.  Nonetheless I do think that it's prudent to let folks know not everyone likes stainless.  It makes it easier when we have to rip them out and do it over with NS after the client decides that they hate stainless.

Personally I'm not a fan of SS frets and I am in the camp that thinks that they "may" sound tinny.  I build acoustics where tone is everything and amplification, equalization etc. are in the player's hands with the guitar being what it is.  Or, in other words in the acoustic world dialing in more or less treble is not possible (amps aside....).

I'll second the fondness of EVO too - great stuff and my favorite wire to work with.  I like how it cuts well, files well, and polishes very well too.  Now if we could do something about that awful, gold color....;)

Just did a fret dress on a D-42 that seems to be the gutiar from hell.  Look at it wrong and it drops bindings....  Don't ya just love this stuff.....

[nathan clark]

Most guitars that come through my shop for a refret have some twisting or other distortions in the fretboard/neck and the frets are shot.  Refretting a guitar like that with any material is going to make the guitar sound and play differently.

I use kobalt brand cheap end nippers for both nickel and ss. I have 2 pair that I mainly use and I ground both of them flush. 

The rough pair is in poor shape with dents and chips missing from the cutting edge. I use this pair for cutting the fretwire to rough length. 

The second pair is in much better shape because I clean up the flush-face with my belt-sander after every refret (sometimes once or twice during the refret if it's the big stainless I'm working with).

When I trim the frets flush to the side of the neck (I rarely pre-grind fret ends these days), I cut as many as I can with the opening of the end-nippers running parallel to the fretboard. Of course, I have to cut perpendicular to the fretboard over the body, but the cutter's edge seem to last longer this way and has the added benefit of cutting cleaner and is less likely to lift the fret end out of the slot a little.

The stew mac tang-nippers work fine with stainless, although they will eventually break if you neglect the cutter and try to nip thick, stainless tangs that are bent. I used my original pair for years before they finally snapped across the face of the tool. When they did snap, I was using a dull cutter and I was cutting the 110 x 57 jescar stainless. My second pair lasted a few months during which I refretted lots of guitars with stainless and these broke in the same fashion and under the same conditions as the first tang nippers I had that broke. I exclusively use the tang-nippers meant for medium fretwire because I suspect the ones meant for jumbo wire are more likely to snap at the machined groove.

One trick for saving some ware and tare on your tang nippers and their cutter is to bend the stainless fret-tang straight with your flush-ground end nippers as they sometimes get a little bent from the process of cutting the wire to rough length. I probably replace the cutter on my tang-nippers every six refrets or so, more often if I'm working with the 110x57. Replacing the cutter regularly makes the work go faster, cleaner and prolongs the life of the tang nippers themselves.

I first started doing repair work full time in 2003. In the summer of 2005 I started working with stainless fret wire (as well as nickel). So pretty much right at the beginning of my career, I started developing my refret working methods to include both nickel and stainless. My process is essentially the same for both materials. Believe it or not, it's actually faster for me to refret with stainless. My average time for a stainless refret is 4.564 hours vs. 4.719 hours for nickel.

[tadej bratkovic]

Got a little update, I got my fretwire today. Even at first glimpse it proves to be a tought cookie. I will slow down now on this one and mull about it for a while, then commence the fretwork. First of all I can hardly cut it with my nippers, but I was thinking of cutting it to lenght with a cutting disc on a dremel, incrementally of course so I won't overheat the wire and make a rainbow. :)

Since this is a Fender and it's unbound I am still not decided if I want to undercut the tang or not. I mean for aesthetical reasons because some of the factory slots are cut little deeper than others. I was thinking of completely undercutting the tang like with bound fingerboards and filling the slot ends with ebony dust and superglue.

Luckily I got a scrap P bass copy neck I never utilized with softer frets and now it is probably the time to do some bench tests with the SS wire.

Thanks for sharing, guys. I'll keep you posted.

[Kerry Krishna]

Tadej, I had a 25 buck Stainless Steel mini-switch that I needed shortened by a 1/4 inch. I tried the Dremel and the more expensive cutting disks. It took about three mins to get through, turned purple, and melted the inside of the thing to liquid dripping uselessness. I seriously have my doubts this will work for you.HJust so you know my friend

... 

[tadej bratkovic]

Kerry, that's strange, I just tried it and it went smooth in a single 6-second (or so) pass without any excessive overheat that might discolor it.

Don't know about your discs, but I always use the 24mm fiberglass reinforced cutting discs on my 'dremel', no problems whatsoever, but the plain ones can be indeed problematic, those often shatter from the inertia. I was cutting way harder stuff than SS wire with these with great success, like exhaust valve stems and bearing rings.

I spent some minutes hot rodding my nippers too and they cut all the way through clean now and I guess you can grow some muscles cutting the jumbo SS wire too :)

[Kerry Krishna]

Yep. The fiberglass ones were what I was using too. SS DOES come in different hardness though, if I remember correctly. I have seen that regular fret nippers from Stewmac will only last a single fret job using them on SS. Sorry,I am all full of negativity these days!

[tadej bratkovic]

Hi all! A promise is a promise.

Can't believe it has been a month since this thread, I thought it was not more than two weeks ago. Anyway, let's keep the story short, I finally manned up and commenced fretting it. Not because I was lazy or anything, but I was very eager to press the frets in, so I needed my buddy (=owner) who is an industrial welder to help me with the fret bender and a press caul. I got tired of my old bender and wanted something more rigid and precise. The plate is plasma cut 6mm steel plate, the center roller is HSS. The pressing caul is obvious I guess, 12mm steel. Everything is copied from SM as you may notice :) I use aluminium cauls I make myself. Using my drill press momentarily for pressing but I am considering a proper arbor press in near future.

Enough about that. Before I cut the first fret I spent some time playing around with NS/EVO/SS pieces to get a feel for hardness. Gotta say, it is really hard technically, but not that hard to work with. And it does ruin your nippers slightly.

I cut the wire short, I won't be nipping the ends, I will file them down flush.

I noticed that original Fender slots are just slightly too shallow (at least these are) to accept Jescar's tang, so I had to deepen them. Luckily I always make a dummy fret by filing down the tang and use that for mocking up and measuring. Anyone knows what glue Fender uses? Looks a bit like superglue, it's clear and brittle, but could be anything, even PVA looks like that when cured. Anyway this stuff was a nightmare to remove from the slots, my slot cleaning saw was just skidding over it most of the time. I have spent at least 15 minutes cleaning each slot. Weird stuff.

Thanks for the attention and support :)

[Hesh Breakstone]

Tadej what size ss wire are you using?  My Stew-Mac nippers survive the medium/medium stuff but anything larger than this and the wire wins and the nippers lose...