tone differerance with stainless steel frets

[Charles E.]

This is a carry over from the discussion about ss fret wire.
My wife plays a Taylor 12-string guitar so we get their Wood & Steel mag. In the ' Ask Bob ' section of the recent issue a reader asks about the availability of ss fret wire in Taylor guitars. Bob responded that they had made a run of a couple of dozen guitars but something was wrong with the tone. They suspected the fret wire and replaced the frets, one at a time, with their normal wire. According to Bob in each and every case the tone returned to normal. Do any of builders have any experiance with this wire? If so can you tell a differance in tone? I Know the wire is not readily available for mandolins but this caught my interest. Thanks.

Charley

[Lefty Luthier]

I once used stainless banjo wire on a mandola and did notice a slight difference but the primary complaint that I had was the difficulty in smoothing the edges. That stuff is really tough and is very hard to remove ragged edges. One positive though is that it is easier to press in since the barbs are really sharp.

[sunburst]

I've used SS wire in two (or three?) new instruments and re-fretted two (or three?) mandolins with SS fret wire. I didn't/don't hear any difference, and only one customer claimed to hear any difference, but it took him a while to decide he heard a difference.

[danb]

Doesn't seem to make a (negative) difference to tone to me either, Wiens 23 has ss frets. I played "Scratchy" (Charlie D's ex Loar), that was redone with SS as well and sounded just fine. I've never before & aftered one though

[Michael Lewis]

I find the difference between standard nickel frets and the stainless ones to be subtle to most folks, but more evident to some. There is a definite difference in tone, a bit edgy, brighter than nickel frets.

[MikeEdgerton]

The OP's reference to Bob Taylor's comments are in the Spring 2009 edition of the Taylor magazine Wood and Steel. It can be found here.

[danb]

I find the difference between standard nickel frets and the stainless ones to be subtle to most folks, but more evident to some. There is a definite difference in tone, a bit edgy, brighter than nickel frets.

Maybe stainless steel frets and virzis cancel each other out :-)

[Michael Lewis]

Dan, you would have to A/B a mandolin to find that out.

[tree]

At my request, John refretted my mandolin (94 F5G) with ss wire. I can't tell a tonal difference, but it sure is fun to play, and the wear seems to be slower than with regular wire. I was going through regular wire in about 2 years. John did the work back in September, and I am just now able to notice the teensiest shadow of marking under the plain courses only.

[sunburst]

Really? I forget your's was SS.
Can't remember anything anymore! Is it the little wire or the medium wire?

[tree]

Let's see, saved email (I can't rely on my memory either) says you had .40 and .80 ss wire at the time. I must've gone with the .40 - I remember when I first got it back thinking the new frets seemed sorta small, but that never enters my mind any more. I really like it.

Tonally, it seems like the same familiar old mandolin (pretty good, not bad, I can't complain). Functionally (with new frets and a great setup) it's a vastly superior mandolin. Makes me happy when I play it. Badda bing!

[sunburst]

Thanks for the report on how they're wearing, Clark.

As for my earlier post where I said two (or three?), better make that some number over three, but I don't know how many because I don't have enough gigs of memory(!), but I still have only heard from one person that they hear a difference, and I think I would remember that.

[Mario Proulx]

I've been using SS on everything since around 2005, and nobody's said anything about tone. I have seen zero wear on all of these, also. Since I didn't tell anyone they were getting SS frets, none searched for a change, and none reported such, thus canceling any perceived/placebo effect. Methinks our kids will someday be saying something like: "ya know, granpappy used to talk about having to refret guitars and mandolins all the time; what were they using, nickel or sumthin'?"

I see no reason to still be using nickel silver fretwire. I swear that my strings even last longer with SS frets.

[D.E.Williams]

Mario, would you care to share what kind of special considerations one must be aware of when using SS fret wire? Can I assume that you can't use the same tools for cutting and dressing etc? Which grade SS are these frets, and how about the source? I'm considering them fr my instrument. Cut a prototype of a back the other day, btw. Looks pretty good.

[sunburst]

Can't speak for Mario, but I use the same tools for SS or nickel/silver frets. It's more difficult to fret with SS, but it doesn't wreck my tools like I've heard others complain about.
I don't know what grade of SS it is, but I got mine from LMI, I believe.

[Mario Proulx]

Mine is the Jescar wire, which I believe is what LMI carries. The only new tool I purchased was a larger pair of side cutters, because cutting the wire to length was hurting my wrists with my small cutters. Other than that, even my StewMac tang nippers haven't yet died, and I've had those since around '99. That SS fretwire wrecks tools is but an urban myth; yes, the tools will wear faster, but not enough to really notice, in my experience.

[D.E.Williams]

Thanks John and Mario. That's good news. I use the diamond fret files anyway, which should handle the SS decently enough. When I worked for a large manufacturer of household plasticware company, I had a chance to watch some real artisans working on repairing SS injection mold cavities. Those folks could do amazing things with honing stones and other stuff. I thought for sure I was going to have quite a chore polishing SS frets, but it doesn't sound like it's so bad after all.

[Michael Lewis]

Oh, Don, you didn't ask about polishing!! You will spend some considerable time making them smooth and shiny.

Yes, heavier nippers are requisite. I ruined some nice small flush cutters.

The small mandolin wire has to have the tang cut and filed by hand to fit over the binding, as the fret nippers are too brutal to the wire. It is tiny wire, and distorts pretty easy in my old nipper. The small size of the wire makes it more difficult to manipulate in my fingers.

The larger wire handles much like regular fret wire, but is more difficult to work.

[sunburst]

My experience matches Michael's exactly for polishing the frets and cutting the tangs on the small wire.
I use one of those Gurien fret files with a bur that cuts smoothly (have to pick through then to find a smooth one) and drag it backwards over the crowned frets. That burnishes the surface and makes polishing faster.

[Mario Proulx]

I use a small triangular file with the edges ground 'safe'; it leaves a very smooth surface, ready for quick sanding with 600 grit, then polish with the Dremel and the StewMac polishing wheels. I'm very careful to have a dead-flat fretboard, and get the frets as level as possible before doing -any- filing(which may including 'chasing' a few high ones with a hammer), and now my fretting time, including final polish is much shorter than it ever was. When all is said and done, I may have only 3-5 frets that need to be touched at all. SS forced me to sit back and re-evaluate how I worked, and everything's for the better now. Nickel silver is so soft and easy to work with that we all have/had bad habits and relied on being able to "work" the frets instead of installing them correctly. So, re-evaluate your entire procedures, and I'm sure you'll see, like I saw, a lot that can be done better/more accurately, and then SS won't be any tougher to do, and in fact will likely be faster/easier.

[Michael Lewis]

Mario, get a high power magnifying glass and look at your polished frets. I think you will see some marks in them. Anyway, that is what I found with the ones I did, so for me it takes considerably more effort to get them polished and really right. You must be Superman if stainless frets go quicker than nickel, they sure don't for me.

You are right that using the stainless frets teaches us how to do better fret jobs. I have been using the radius cauls from Stew/Mac, fitted into a block of aluminum to tap them in so the arc is constant and the fret never gets distorted in the process.

[Dave Hanson]

I fail to see how SS fretwire could sound different to any other fretwire. an open string is an open string whatever, and saying it is a subtle difference to most folks is in the realms of the kings new clothes.

Dave H

[Bill Snyder]

I fail to see how SS fretwire could sound different to any other fretwire. an open string is an open string whatever, and saying it is a subtle difference to most folks is in the realms of the kings new clothes.

Dave H

I figured they were talking about the instrument sounding different when fretted, not the open strings.

[MikeEdgerton]

I have ultimate respect for Bob Taylor, and I assume he is quite attuned to his own instruments. If he heard a difference in his product then I'm certain he heard a difference. Could I hear the difference? Probably not but then again I'm not as attuned to his instruments as he is (I've owned a Taylor guitar since the 80's, I play it weekly). I seriously doubt he would have gone to the trouble or paid the price to refret a batch of instruments if he hadn't thought he needed to. I really don't mind any builder paying that much attention to their product.

[Mario Proulx]

Michael I'm not a magician, nor Superman; I'm simply a former engineer who took a long look at fretting and found another way, a complete system. I'd describe it, but I've had thoughts of marketing this system; either way, I will make it known someday. That said, I encourage everyone to re-think how they fret; y'al are likely to find a beter methoid than mine, still.

As a player, I was always miffed that my favorite instruments, which of course get played the most, needed fret work, either replacement of dressing or simply re-polishing, at regular intervals, and when reasonable SS frets arrived, and showed me that they didn't kill strings or changed the tone, I was set and determined to make them work, and by the geeze, I did.

Yes, I have looked at the surface with magnification; it's very nice, and it holds its polish indefinitely. Try the little polishing wheels that SM sells; the only "trick" to them is to make quick passes over the frets, and only one pass at a time, in order to not heat up the fret too much; do the entire fretboard, then repeat. 5-6 passes gets them tuned up to a high polish.

Here's a macro shot(hand held, so it's not perfect; sorry) of the second fret on my own guitar, which is nearing the one year mark; it gets a good hour of play each day. I am linking to it because it's too large for the forum.

http://proulxguitars.com/temp/cu1.jpg

Mike, it's very possible that Bob found the SS hard on his equipment, or more time-consuming for how they work, and is creating a negative mindset in order to discourage their use.