How fast do you wear your frets?

[Adrian30]

Are you one of the guitarists that “plays like a breeze”, whose left hand has the skill of fretting clean notes without applying too much pressure on the fret(board)? Or, are you perhaps an SRV type of player that squeezes the natural oils out of neck, while playing?

According to my guitars, I would consider myself to be somewhere in the middle. None of them is showing substantial fretware, but it seems that I could be gentler with my left hand, without sacrificing anything from the technical aspect of playing, and possibly gaining more in speed.

(I guess this tread can go both ways: technique/playing and fretware.)


A

[Spudman]

Good topic.

In theory you really only need enough pressure to cleanly fret a note. Many shredders play this way.

But the great thing about the guitar is that it is so expressive and responsive to minute differences of technique that you can get a variety of effects depending on how hard you play a note and squeeze that neck. When Stevie or Albert play that one blue note they wring it for all it is worth. This creates more wear on the frets for sure. I'm sure they are squeezing hard, but only hard enough to get that note to transmit what they are trying to express.

Some people play with a harder grip than they need to and I think this is evident on guitars of fairly new players until they develop a better 'touch.' You can tell if their frets below fret 5 have dips in them where the strings hit the fret. This is due to squeezing harder than necessary.

There is also a difference in fret material. Some will wear faster than others because of shape and width of the fret and softness of the metal. I believe stainless steel fret wire is very hard and nickle not quite as hard. At the higher frets the wear is more even because the string gets slid back and forth across the frets because of hand vibrato. The dips are not usually evident.

I find that if my hand is getting tired then I'm fretting way to hard and will consciously lighten my grip. Because of that issue I strive to play with a lighter touch except for that 'blue' note that I just have to throw in. The first 3-6 years of my playing saw frets with plenty of dips. Most of my guitars experience fairly even fret wear lately so I must be using a more efficient technique.

[chordshredder]

I have a cheap guitar with big fat soft frets, left it out on a stand, didnt clean the dust bunnies and played the few songs I knew at least 5 hours a week for two years and it shows more wear than the guitar Ive had for fourty years that has small almost mandolin fret wire which must be really hard. When I get to playing I dont think of how I fret but how soft or strong should the note sound unless my hand should start talking back to me and then I usually tell my self to suck it up or hang it up. I will have to learn to either plane and recrown or refret soon; as the dreaded buzz is just around the corner. Anybody refretted a washboard oscar shmidt delta king? Actually the only reason Ive kept the cheap thing is the delivery man put his foot through the first one and this one is a replacement-not much sentiment there huh?

[Brian Krashpad]

I'd guess I'm somewhere in between.

At this point I have the relative luxury of owning a batch of electrics, and I've always "rotated" them at practices and shows (no sense havin' 'em if they don't get played), so the wear is dispersed out amongst the whole herd rather than centered on only one or two guitars.

[Robert]

Great topic. I think I have a light touch, but I also have a bunch of cheap guitars. I suspect the cheap guitars don't have as good fretwire as the more expensive guitars.

I also bend quite a bit these days, and then I'm workin dem frets hard! :beer:

I notice the fretwear after a year or so. That's whey I buy a new guitar. :D

[Tone2TheBone]

I've had my Gibson LP Studio for 20 years and I haven't noticed any severe fret wear. The frets are the fretless wonder jumbo flats so they were flat to begin with. They still seem to have wire left. No unusual buzzes or visible dents or anything.

[abraxas]

Interesting points made. :AOK:

Apart from pressure, skin chemistry plays it's role to wearing frets. In general, people that destroy strings with their sweat in a matter of hours, also wear frets in a shorter time than others with more "hardware friendly" bodily fluids.:rotflmao:

I have an American made Kramer which is almost a vintage instrument now, and has been played to death. It just needs new frets now, after more than 20 years (of course, it had a couple of fret leveling jobs). Which brings us to the interesting point of fret material.

I suppose many manufacturers, choose to put cheap fretwire to their more economical models. I can see the economy of scale, but c'mon. Choosing a better fretwire and selling the guitar a few dollars more is not such a big deal now, isn't it? Perhaps is what Robert says: when the frets wear out, just buy a new guitar! Alas we live in an era of consumer-everything. I'm not sure whether this is a good thing or not.

[aeolian]

None of my guitars show any noticeable fretwear, including guitars I've own for over 30 years. I do know I play with a light touch, but it may also be that I don't play my guitars nearly enough.

[LagrangeCalvert]

WELLL....depends on what I'm playing and what guitar.

My Epi has been re-fretted with dunlop 6061 medium jumbo's and then dressed to .031 of an inch. I wanted a guitar with very low, very wide frets. This setup is something you have to really get used to....I will get some pic's up of the fretboard ASAP so you can see how low/wide they are. Since they are wide they distribute the pressure of the string much better than taller, thinner frets....so even with me playing with either hard or soft touch and dynamics the frets aren't worn out as fast...not to mention the stock Epi fretwire is softer.

On my strat...it has a 50's style neck so its got the thinner smaller frets than other strats...I find this guitar with its radius and my playing style, it wears at a slow rate (I play about 15 hours every week) for the amount I grip it. This guitar is better for chording than my Epi cause the radius AND since I play songs that are made up of more chords than anything else with my strat.

I also feel the strings have a little to do with this also....but I'm still trying to think how....

You would think a larger gauge string, with its larger contact area wouldn't wear the frets as much....BUT since there is more tension that goes along with these strings it takes more pressure to fret a note.

I do the - as I call it "the strangled strat blues tone" - with really heavy pick attack when I'm playing certain blues/blues rock sound to get the almost SRV tone......

my .02 on this one.

[LagrangeCalvert]

Interesting points made. :AOK:

Apart from pressure, skin chemistry plays it's role to wearing frets. In general, people that destroy strings with their sweat in a matter of hours, also wear frets in a shorter time than others with more "hardware friendly" bodily fluids.:rotflmao:



.
This is a little off topic....BUT I find the DAddario's on my strat only last half as long as my Ernie Balls on my Epi....I play them = amounts of time too FWIW.