to johntheson

yeah It seems that alot of manufacturers are using low grade fretwire or something.I think I'm gonna get a neck with stainless steel frets to combat this problem of refretting and all that hassels that go along with this. thanks

in a perfect world I would like to have Rene Martinez and Dan Erlewine refret all my guitars for regular rate lol jks

I have gone all ways; refretted one, and have a new neck for a build. The refret was on a MIM RI, it cost me 150 because Im friends with the luthier; who later taught me how to do it, so now i do fret dressings and refretts. If its a rosewood, you're probably looking around the $200 mark, maple will be more because there's more bench hours involved in getting the old frets off without messing the finish on the fretboard. My build; i got a Warmoth quarter-sawn maple w/ no real profile, and shaped the back of it myself; It basically a hybrid 50s V & assymetrical. I started by putting a V profile on, then at the 7th, I softened the V "VERY"slightly, and took down the treble side shoulder so its kind of like a SRV, its like a tailored suit. Then I had my friend shoot it w 3 very thin coats of nitro; a base, tint, then clear. It looks amazing with the abalone inlays. And when i dressed the frets, i only really touched the tops, so the sides still have a bit of the tint, and look gold. Im digressing though. Unless you want a totally different type of neck, get the refret. Erlwine's a master, but $400 is not a fair price IMO, but I havent seen your neck. If its a 'fretless wonder', then I can see the $400. Also, one thing to think about in regards to the 50% of the fret being taken off is; Its probably not as much as you think, but any drop in fret height will feel like alot. Also, if its a 95, and just had its first dressing (i dont know the situation), you may have frets that have worn very heavily in some parts, and the luthier may have HAD to take the rest down to have an even heigt (though if It was on my bench, i probably would have jsut replaced the frets that were really worn). I would go for the refret if you like the neck, because; IT WILL BE YOUR NECK, FOR YOUR GUITAR, and there is a premium for that. If you want a different neck, you can pick one up unfinished for $150, then have someone add the finish. I find Warmoth put WAY TOO MUCH finish on EVERYTHING they add finish to, If you feel mine, it feels like wood, even though the fretboard is glossy, a Warmoth finish will feel like plastic. A warning though; the ONLY reason I go through Warmoth is for the quality. Its definitely not the service. I build custom pedals now, and have just finished makeing making a couple amps. Ive dealt with every manufacture you can think of in regards to guitar makers and effects companies;; Warmoth are the worste. Very arrogant, and unwilling to bend at all. The best in case you want to know is Dunlop. I have a few, actuall now that I think of it, most of the pedals that I use that arent my own are a dunlop; MXR, Way Huge, Crybaby, you name it. I use the same serveice rep Ryan, and he's the best. Answers my questinos quickly and accurately. I sometimes will write to get a part number to order a part; My 535Q Wah, needed a new back plate and "\trim pot for the "Q", he just sends them to me, I dont even pay for shipping, dudes great. If you have any questions about frets, get in touch with me. I personally like 6105 Narrow, Tall fretwire

sweet thanks dude for the informative response! regarding Warmoth I totally agree with you they are very unprofessional in the way they talk to their customers they are downright Rude in fact hence why I am hesitant to buy a new neck from them even if its only $150 bucks. yeah I'll mos def keep in touch with you concerning the frets thanks again bud

I can't even believe Warmoth is still in business after all the years of horrible service to their customers?!

Fender should just start making their own replacement necks like LEO FENDER initially did back in the Pre CBS days the whole concept of the "detachable neck" was so that working musicians DID NOT have to pay and arm and a leg to fix their guitars when the frets wore out you just slapped a new FENDER one back on!

FENDER take HEED!! hire me for R&D consultation if you want too lol another Leo Fender first he used to take Freddy Tavares advice on how $@!&#* the tele was and improved on it

Fender are going to be making replacement necks so I hear through the luthier grapevine. The ONLY thing that keeps Warmoth going is 1) the do make a good product w/ one caveat; if you can find someone to do it, or are confident in your finishing skills, get it unfinished. When they apply finish, they make too thick, the wood doesnt resonate as well. Although, wood with strats dont mean as much as the do with tele's. Since the strings never come into direct contact with the wood, the closest is the nut. The strings run through a trem, so the block makes or breaks the sustain, and even the pickups float on a plastic pickguard, but it does make some difference. Also, when they finish bodies, it gives them a chance to cover up blemishes that would normally make you choose another body. I heard a story from someone that they had a strange circle on the top. He said when he stripped it years later, it turned out to be a knot or something they bored out and replaced with a dowel. now I can only go by the story because I didnt see it with my own eyes and have learned over the last year or so working on peoples guitars that the story doesnt always match reality. 2)name recognition. My problem was; I orderd my neck on like a tuesday or something, two days later I wrote to see how long it was going to take to receive it, and was told 10 weeks. Well, considering that the nitro takes a month to fully cure, this was just too long, so I said i wanted to cancel the order, and get one that was already made that had a boat neck profile. I figured it was thick enough to shape into what i wanted. i received the most arrogant email telling me if i did so; they would charge me a $45 cancellation fee, and a 25% restocking fee (on somethign they didnt even start building yet), and they would not budge. they basically told me if I didnt like it I could go elsewhere. Ive been in sales for well over a decade, and personally think that after quality, customer service is the most important factors over who earns my business. Price comes a distant third. I think this way because I was a car salesman for over a decade, and cant even begin to count how many people bought elsewhere to save a couple hundred dollars. Well you only buy something once, but you on it for alot longer, they found out that after the sale, they could care less about them. I will pay more for better service. I very recently (last week) decided I needed a toss around acoustic. So I ordered an Epiphoen Masterbilt dreadnaught from a certain major online company that owns a major chain. I paid $100 to have it next day air delivered. I ordered it on a thursday, and didnt want it sitting ina cold tuck all weekend, because Ive seen what cold does to guitars. The shops seen close to 50 acoustics (mostly Martins because of their thinner tops, and with the HD's, the scalloped bracing) come in with splt tops, warped bodies, adn binding come off. They told me the shipped it that day, they didnt. then they lied repeatedly about what ws going on. I had to have it reshipped. In the end, the $500 guitar cost me 250 with all the credits they had to give me, and they gave me 205 off a next purchase; which i used to buy a PRS Customr 24 SE, I think their Korean made guitas are better made than most of Gibsons US made ones, nd I'll mod it to the point whre it will be a new guitar. After that, I will never buy from them again. I should have gone through Sweetwater. They are at times a little more expensive, but my rep there is the best. If i order a couple sets of strings, they email me when it goes out,, after it arrives, and I get a phone call a couple days later to make sure im happy.

I do have to say though, believe it or not; Warmoth necks fit fender bodies better than actual Fender replacement necks. They had a bunch of bad American Deluxes for a while that would get a twist, so the shop is able to get actual replacement necks, and we end up having to shim them on the sides, but the Warmoth always go right in. Mighty mite builds come in, and I run, they never fit together. the last one was a MM neck and body, and it they were some of the worst products i ever saw. The kid waited a while to get them, so he just wanted us to make it work. In the end, he could have gotten a Warmoth for less.

wow yeah that's pretty dissappointing sorry you had to go through all that dude you're not alone in this guitar industry for every one good honest person that does good work there are like 50 horrible ones that shouldn't be in this business ripping people off of their hard earned money. there should be a liscense to regulate this stuff because the guys I seen with Fender Gold Certified liscenses seem to be dudes that came in off the street and have worked on only one guitar and are very rude and condescending to alot of customers. I wish we had more good repair guys like you out this way

Some info for all; a particular chain has recently decided at the corprate level to open "guitar garages", and to stop sending out the major repairs. We used to do all of one of their stores repairs. You'll find when you go into their "garages" that anything more than a setup, or wiring, they dont really want to touch it. If anyone goes to a luthier for work, and you see any sign of apprehension in the job, even a weird look, take your guitar elsewhere. This means they're not confident that they can do it right, which means you're taking a chance, a big chance, that they wont. And during this season;
KEEP YOUR ACOUSTICS IN THEIR CASES, AND INVEST THE $15 IN A SOUNDHOLE HUMIDIFIER!! I cannot believe how many acoustics ive seen this winter with damage due to dry air. This is especially true on newer acoustics. The first2-3 years are the most important. While older acoustics can get damaged too (ive seen many) newer acoustics, because the wood is so new, and hasnt broken in from playing yet; are more suseptable to dry air damage. I like the Oasis, its what Martin recommends, but make or buy a soundhole cover, they are really needed for them to do their job properly. Good luck, and cheers to all.

If the indentations in his frets warranted it, it can and does happen. However, if it were me, I would have advised the OP that he was going to lose approximately 50% of his fret 'meat' in order to level them and discuss the possibility and options available for new frets OR a new neck for the exact reasons you've stated.

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You dig?

unfortunately they didn't warn me they just said "can I interest you in a Fret Dress?"
"you need one especially if you use lighter guage strings" I think my guitar had one bad fret from being played on alot since 95 when it was made but i had no idea they would turn the medium jumbo into a fretless wonder?! type creation lol yeah it pissed me off for sure.

Fwiw, johntheson hasn't posted here since November, 2008.

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Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!

ok thanks for the heads up I appreciate it

On stainless steel frets; I wouldn't recommend them unless you're getting a guitar that already has them. I've done a few refrets withthem and what I found was; be prepared to spend much more $ getting them installed. They take MUCH more work installing them, this is especially true when it comes to the dressing. They take forever to grind down and polish. Plus they go through the fret files quicker, so any luthier that has done them in the past will take that into account. Also, and the biggest problem doing a refret on a guitar that's going from nickel to SS is that when we bend them to fit your radius, they don't want to stay at that radius, and have a tendency to pop out at the edges of the fretboard. Once you remove original frets, the wood isn't as strong, and doesn't hold the fret as well. Part of this comes from how we remove them. Most people will touch a soldering iron to the edge of the fret; this makes the wood, especially rosewood and ebony, to release the oils they contain. This allows the fret to come up with less force, and keeps the slot more intact. But once the oil comes up it obviously leaves it dryer. One way around this is to glue the fret in. Most people shudder at this, because it makes that next refret all that much harder. What most people don't know is that PRS glues a lot of their frets in (they also don't know that Taylors, after a certain year, even the $3000 ones; all have bolted necks instead of dovetailed like Gibson and Martins higher models: D28,18, 000-28 etc, hell even the Epiphone masterbilts are dovetailed. I'm digressing but that's one of the reasons I don't like Taylors as much, they're a great playing, looking and sounding guitar, there's just something I can't put my finger on about them. Though I love when someone needs a neck reset on a Taylor, unbolting a neck is much easier than manhandling the neck back & forth until you hear a crack, then hoping its glue and not wood that just cracked LOL). Anyways, I want to put this controversy to bed. The frets are no softer now than they were in the past. One thing that has changed and may lead people to believe that they have are the strings that are used today. I use pure nickel strings. I started using them specifically because I was using 11 & 12 gauge strings on my strats, the heavy strings, along with the way I tend to squeeze the neck when I play and heavy bending on the B & G strings, coupled with the fact that I had vintage 7 1/4" radiused fretboards, and the small vintage frets ( I know use 6105 narrow/tall on compounded, 10", and 12" radiused fretboards) caused them to wear EXTREMELY fast. I had been using normal strings, that though they say nickel strings are really nickel plated steel. Steel is harder than nickel, Henderson they wear down the frets quicker. Once I started using them I found them to have other qualities that I liked over nickel plated steel; warmer tone, they also stay in tune much better. This was proved when I strung them up the first time. After tuning to pitch, we all go through the " tug on the string, it stretches, tune back to pitch, repeat. Before, it would literally take a couple days of playing before they were fully settled in. With pure nickel; it takes me 3-4 tugs, and its in tune and stays there. I do use locking tuners on my strata, but not on my Gibson ES, or my old Sheraton, or the PRS stoptail I had, and though there's no tremolo on them, I use the trem sparingly anyway, and even if I am really working it, everything stays in tune. I do use nickel plated on the Sheraton most of the time, because on that guitar I want a brighter tone. So I know I'm rambling, but just thought I'd share what I've learned over the last few years Modding, fixing, and experimenting with guitars. One thing you can ask your luthier t do isbwhqt I do. I use Martin fretwire a lot on strat regrets, and it comes on a spool as opposed to individual frets. I run them through a Bender a few times, each time bending it in the opposite direction of the last ( a trick I picked up from Dan Erlewine). This actually makes the metal harder and more resilient. I did it first for a friend who plays the Warped Tour every summer, and ALWAYS comes back with the need for a fret dressing and crowning at the least, some years he'd come back needing a whole new regret (this was before I was doing this type of work). I did it on one of his 3 main guitars, and its a telephone and the one that tends to have the most fret wear every fall. At the end of the tour I went to visit him, totally forgetting that I had even done that, and he produced the guitar, with amazingly little fret wear. From that point on, I always offer it for an extra $50, which may sound like a lot, but it takes me well over an hour to do, on the big jumbo frets close to 2, and we normally charge $75-85/hour for labor. So when you factor in that, and the extended life of the fret; its a Barton. I'm done, & typed this allbon my cellphone; so I apologize for typos and spelling mistakes but I'm not proofreading this
I hope I've been of some help.

Quite the opposite. Fretting and bending notes with a lot of effort is called digging in and it can make a world of positive difference in your tone once you get practised at it. If you aren't digging in then you probably suck too bad to tell the difference anyhow.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.