Narrow Slot Fretwire

[Carl Mesrobian]

I have a piccolo mandolin that needs frets. the slots are approximately .013 - .014 inches. The customer brought it in with no frets. Has anyone worked on one of these? Were the original frets bar type or T type? It's made in Germany with a Marcelli tailpiece. I' like to leave the slots alone - not sure if the fret barber from Stew Mac can do this..Hate to spend $80 on a whim.

[Ron Frazier]

I have replaced the older square frets with silver sodder .Just a few at  a time and that works.

I have a old marten neck that has no frets so I will have to make them the right width.  I will roll the silver sodder to make it the right thickness.

Ron

[Carl Mesrobian]

I like - for another patient :)

[Paul Breen]

By far the easiest thing to do is cut the fret slots wider and re-fret it with easily available fret wire. This piece likely has little value, why spend a lot of time dolling up fret wire? Fret saws are inexpensive, if you don't already have one. What if/ when it comes back for another fret job? Make it easy on yourself and the next person. My 2 cents anyway.

[Frank Ford]

I'd say T-frets.  Slots that size would take bar fret wire so skinny as to be more than a bit nasty to play, so I'd not hesitate to recut the slots to fit regular modern mandolin T-frets. . .

[Carl Mesrobian]

T frets with wider slots gets the prize - bar frets that narrow just doesn't seem right.

[Ron Frazier]

The slots a lot wider than any T slot

Ron

[Jeff Highland]

0.014" is really narrow Ron

[Kerry Krishna]

 I'm with the other folks here. Why go to all that trouble? The instrument is not worthy of a museum restoration , so why kill yourself doing this work? Widen rye slots and put in some regular fret wire...