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K3NTUCKI8oy
Oct-25-2008, 3:42am
Share your input on installing and playing with stainless steel.

Hans
Oct-25-2008, 6:55am
I've been using the .040 SS frets on my F5C and F4C models, and like it. It's hard on sidecutters, but other than that works well and installs the same. Have also been using D'Addario SS strings with them and they last forever.

danb
Oct-25-2008, 9:40am
I have them on my Wiens F5. They have little shine markings under the A pair so far only.. usually by now with this much playing I'd have appreciable dents in standard vintage style thin frets

Chris Biorkman
Oct-25-2008, 9:56am
I have them on my Poe and I like them. Not even the slightest indentation after a few months of hard playing.

K3NTUCKI8oy
Oct-25-2008, 11:18am
I gotta get me a set because I practice 3 hours a day.

sunburst
Oct-25-2008, 12:07pm
Andy Thacker (a great mandolin player from Charlottesville) plays and practices a lot. I have put 4 or 5 sets of frets in his main ax (my #6 mandolin) in the 4 or 5 years that he has owned it, the last time switching to SS. I got to check them out when he brought it by when he picked up his new mandolin (also fretted with SS) and there is virtually no wear on the frets yet. This is a guy who can completely were out a set of nickel silver frets in a year or less (up to the 14th fret or so), so I figured he'd be the true test of SS as to longer fret life. Now that he has two mandolins he'll be distributing the wear between two sets of frets, but even so in a year or so I'll really know how much longer SS lasts.