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Post subject: Fret Wear
Posted: Sat Jan 01, 2011 4:40 pm
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Hey, I'm new to the forum, and I have a few questions about fret wear.

After my string broke today on my 2009 MIM Standard Strat, I took off all the strings for a clean up/check in and restring. I noticed that on all the frets before the 15th (and some after as well), there were indentations, some more extreme than others, and understood this was fret wear.

Is it normal that this happened after a mere year and a half? I do practice and play quite a bit, but this was pretty unexpected. What would be a good solution? The guitar doesn't buzz yet, but when it does...?


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Post subject: Re: Fret Wear
Posted: Sat Jan 01, 2011 4:53 pm
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It's perfectly normal for a guitar to wear frets quickly if the strings are dirty, or you play with dirty hands occasionaly and don't wipe your guitar down after you're done.
You need to clean underneath the strings as well as ontop of them after you've played. It's the prime reason for frets wearing out fast. Unless of course your practicing for 14 hours a day.
You'll more than likely get away with polishing the frets to remove the indentations. If their seriously deep, you will have to get them ground/re-leveled. You may even have to have a few replaced if it's really bad.

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Post subject: Re: Fret Wear
Posted: Sun Jan 02, 2011 1:08 am
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Yeah, I'd say that's normal. It's been six months since I had fret work done on my guitar and the frets are already developing flat spots where I bend. I'm in for a refret sometime later this year.

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Post subject: Re: Fret Wear
Posted: Sun Jan 02, 2011 4:28 am
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It's really not normal at all, really.
Theres a couple of things you need to consider before getting your guitar refretted.

1, you've around 2mm of fret wire height to get through. It's highly unlikely you'll wear through that in a year.

2 Your your guitar neck will only put up with about five refrets in it's lifetime before the timber either side of the fretslots becomes just too weak to hold/support fretwire.

A far more reasonable timescale for fretwork would be to polish once every year, level and crown once every 18months. Give or take a few months either way depending on how much you play the thing, whether you clean the strings after playing. And wash your hands before playing.

Nevin, though I'd never normally question the pain involved in shaking your hand. I'd ask you to think about how much pressure is needed to push nickel through nickel. You'd hear the notes played being a mile out of tune well before you had enough pressure to make a dent on the fretwire. Never mind what it would do to your fingertips.

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Post subject: Re: Fret Wear
Posted: Sun Jan 02, 2011 6:08 am
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Fret wear is from the strings essentially rubbing up against the metal frets, based on the amount of use, as well as the heaviness of your playing, etc. Usually, what you will see in an instance of fret wear is little indentations where the strings will normally rest on the fret.

You'll notice it, it's not hard to miss; if you have an issue of fret wear, you can (or have a tech) re-crown the frets, which is to basically have them sanded down and rounded off so that the fret is nice and smooth again, just as you would see on a new guitar.

Here's a good article on frets :

http://www.fretnotguitarrepair.com/repa ... /frets.php

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Post subject: Re: Fret Wear
Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2011 2:59 am
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+1 Miami

Also, fret size does matter. Thin 70s style Fender strat frets can were down faster than the modern jumbo style. I had a Martin acoustic with thin frets that wore down after 2 years of playing. I refretted that guitar 3 times and had to go to larger frets with wider tangs to compensate for the re-fretting wear. The larger medium frets lasted longer and could be crowned more often than the thin originals.

You must play a lot and hard YR96 to wear out thin frets in a year.


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Post subject: Re: Fret Wear
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 11:03 am
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I am an amateur player who bought a new Fender Elite (US made) on October 2106 (~16 months ago). The retail store ordered the guitar straight from Fender as I did not want a display model. I play 45 minutes every other day and now have fret-wear (dents and flattening); I contacted Fender and received the following response...

"...after 1.5 years, I do not think it (warranty) would be covered, 45 minutes every other day, for a year and a half, is some pretty heavy play time and I would expect that result as well. The frets are considered a consumable product, almost like the strings, they are going to show wear, and require service at some point."

So, if I do the math correctly, if I was a professional playing 2 hours every day (that is 5.7 times more playing time than me), I would need to fix the frets after 2.7 months! This goes against most of what I've read on the internet from credible sources. The idea that frets are a "consumable product, almost like strings" is disappointing, given this guitar is marketed as a "elite", or, high-end guitar. I checked the serial number and confirm it is not a counterfeit.


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