Stainless steel frets on vintage Les Pauls

[riscado]

if you have to move into a refret of your old junior, special, standard or custom les paul from the golden era of Gibson, would you ever consider stainless steel frets?

Thanks

 

[sunburst1]

I wouldn't , they have a different feel and affect tone in a negative way to my ears , IMO,OMMV.

 

[fretboarder]

Ive heard they make a guitar sound brighter well unplugged anyway.. but who knows unless youve tryed it on a certain guitar the frets might be a plus or a negative..

 

[TM1]

Having done a refret with those and also one with the EVO stuff for clients, No! They are a major pain to work with and I just don't like the sound you get with them..I think if you have a dark sounding guitar they would be fine. But if you have a good sounding guitar, go with the regular Nickel Silver wire. I know whatever Gibson used starting around 1960 was a very hard wire and not easy to work with.

 

[Dishimyuh]

if you have to move into a refret of your old junior, special, standard or custom les paul from the golden era of Gibson, would you ever consider stainless steel frets?

Thanks

Not no, hell no.

 

[thin sissy]

I've thought of doing a refret of my 57 jr with SS frets. I've heard that they last a lot longer than regular frets. But the responses here are discouraging :dang .

 

[riscado]

I've thought of doing a refret of my 57 jr with SS frets. I've heard that they last a lot longer than regular frets. But the responses here are discouraging :dang .

yes, I was considering this as well on my 59 single cut junior, but message taken, it doesn't seem to be recommend by you guys, so I'll look into alternatives.

 

[thin sissy]

yes, I was considering this as well on my 59 single cut junior, but message taken, it doesn't seem to be recommend by you guys, so I'll look into alternatives.

I'd love to try it for myself before I decide though. But, unless you play the guitar with regular frets for a long time first, and then the same guitar after the refret, it's impossible to know how the SS frets impacts the tone. Tricky...

 

[bobbradley]

I've done it ( well joe glaser did it eace2) and those awesome jasper frets feel awesome. The effect on the instruments tone has been minimal if any at All in reguard to fret material. Any time you refret a guitar with flat spent frets, it breaths new life in and I feel improves the sound no matter the material. Also I am confident that I won't be refreting in my lifetime. I feel some purist might see this as heresy. That said I am firmly reisideing on the player side of things and give zerofu#ks about original frets.

I will say it is quite expensive to have it done and time consuming and tough to do it yourself. Stainless is rough on tools and a pain in general. Expect about a 150 dollar up charge on a typical fret job.


the first part is Just my opinion. The second part is a fact .

 

[thin sissy]

Thanks for sharing your experience! Did you notice any difference in feel (apart from overall playability from the new frets)? I mean, is the traction from string to fret any different and so on?

 

[sws1]

While maybe not everyone agrees, there are enough people saying it changes the tone that I am erring on the side that says, "It does". Whether it's better or worse, only you can decide that.

 

[riscado]

I don't know if it changes the tone/response of the instrument, I have never tried changing one of my guitars to stainless steel frets, the durability of the material does appeal to me though.

I do know that a lot of people claim it does change the response of the instrument, however most of these claims are not based on the experience of refretting an instrument that people are familiar with and which previously had regular frets, so there is that...

But then people like TM1 and bobbradley who have actually experienced it first hand also seem to have conflicting opinions.

 

[bobbradley]

I would like to add that rosewood fretboard guitars are easier to re-fret and really adding stainless Frets might be unnecessary. The effect on the tone of the instrument is a bit of sharpness on the front of the note,possibly a little bit of added brightness unplugged. I don't think you could really tell the difference though a cranked Marshall. That said I've had a few people tell me that after they refetted with stainless they no longer liked their guitar. My experience does not reflect this. That said if I was refretting A very expensive guitar such as a burst I would go with whatever the guitar came with originally.

 

[Dishimyuh]

A friend of mine had a partial refret with stainless frets, it makes a difference sonically.