Official Luthiers Forum!

Can anyone please explain to me how fret size affects playability, tone and anything else you can think of. I am faced with making a decision without any idea about size.

I tend to opt for the medium size frets for playability and durability too.

If you get the frets too high, you can actually make the strings go out of tune if you have too heavy of a grip. I have an electric that is giving me that problem right now and will most likely be re-fretted in the near future.

If you get the frets too low, you can cause undue wear on the fretboard because your fingertips will dig in further than normal. You can get an "electrc guitar" feel with the lower frets and also lower action, but the trade off is lack of volume in the acoustic realm.

All in all, the medium size frets are the best bet.

_________________
Reguards,

Ken H

I prefer Mediums myself. But I know some hard rockers and heavy metallers who like jumbos. If you play a lot of hammer on pull off style taller frets seem to have some benifit because of less less finger contact with the fingerboard. If your tallking acoustics I would stick with mediums.

_________________
Guitars, guitars and more guitars.

Stew-mac medium/medium here, I think it is the 148 wire.

I've fallen in love with the Jim Dunlop 6105, which is a medium/large. A friend turned me onto it, and I haven't looked back.

_________________
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

Folks have their preference for crown size but I think the tang size is also very important. Adjusting the tang size to fret slot size upward can stiffen an otherwise flexible neck. On the other hand reducing the size can prevent back-bowing a neck in fretting such as on a classical guitar.

Martin sells fret wire in .010" increments from .0185", .0195 etc. through .0275" refret sizes.

Medium-High (SM#141) for me. I like the fact that they respond to a light touch. I have not experienced any intonation problems. I have used these same frets on 2 electrics as well and the players prefer them over the lower frets they were used to.

That's good for me since I can now buy only one size in quantity.

_________________
JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com