From Guitar World · · 2m
Stainless steel frets are taking over
Guitar makers are swapping nickel fretwire for stainless steel, and players say bends have never felt this slippery.
In brief
Guitar makers are swapping nickel fretwire for stainless steel, and players say bends have never felt this slippery. Stainless frets do not change how your guitar sounds, they change how long it keeps feeling freshly set up. Originally reported by Guitar World.
Worn frets used to be the deal
For most of the electric guitar's life, players accepted that bending strings would eventually carve flat spots and divots into the crowns. A refret every few years was just the cost of playing.
Nickel is soft, steel is not
Standard fretwire is a copper and nickel alloy, easy for a tech to cut, seat, level and crown, but it wears down. Stainless steel is much harder, which is great on the neck and rough on the tools.
Not new, just everywhere now
The Parker Fly put stainless frets on the map in the early '90s and boutique builders followed. What changed is availability: they moved off custom spec sheets onto production guitars.
From Fender to $899 Epiphones
Fender's American Ultra Luxe, ESP's LTD Deluxe 1000 Series and Epiphone's $899 Futura range all ship with stainless steel. Budget brand EART puts them on every guitar it sells.
Like skating on fresh ice
Properly installed and polished, stainless frets kill the gritty drag that builds up on worn nickel. Philip Sayce told Guitar World it changed how far he could push a bend.
“It's like putting on your skates and going out on a fresh sheet of ice. You can take these big, long strides.”
18 months becomes five years
One of Sayce's older Strats needed fretwork about every 18 months. With stainless, that stretched to roughly five. Misha Mansoor calls the jumbo stainless neck on his signature Jackson easy to shred on.
Material cannot fix bad fretwork
Height, width, crown shape, board radius and the quality of the level and polish matter more than the metal. A well dressed nickel set beats a mediocre stainless job. Steel just holds its polish longer.
The tone debate is small
Some players hear a brighter, harder attack. Others hear nothing. Either way it is a smaller change than swapping pickups, strings, picks or speakers, and it will not turn your guitar into a different instrument.
You pay in labour, not tone
Stainless chews through cutters and files, takes longer to dress and costs more to refret, especially on a bound board. ESP's CEO says it was still customers' number one requested upgrade.
The main idea
Stainless frets do not change how your guitar sounds, they change how long it keeps feeling freshly set up.
