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I tried my hand for the first time with stainless steel frets. Never mind the fact that my hands may not be strong enough to deal with cutting the fret wire, my home modified $15 pair of end nippers (which have been working fine up till now with normal wire) are now toast. What do people here use for cutting this stuff? I'm hesitant to buy a good pair of nippers if stainless steel frets will just chew them up anyway, should I just expect to blow through a pair when I work with stainless? I really don't like buying things I know will just wear out quickly and need to be thrown away, (I recognize my $15 pair of nippers may fall into this category.)

I just ventured into stainless as well. I used the Jescar nippers.

Also, I bought this thing:

https://www.jescarguitar.com/shop/summi ... nd-cutter/

That is a tool for people who love tools. It doesn’t work for over the body frets, but for the rest of the frets it could not be beat. The jaws are offset and the crown slot holds down on the fret while the cutter comes up from the other side. Because if the extra torque cutting stainless in general I would recommend this.

Jescar has a bunch of tools marked as “for stainless”.

Brad



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Knipex, grind the face back to where it cuts flush, you might want the high leverage
https://www.kctoolco.com/knipex-99-11-2 ... stic-grip/

You need non-flush nippers with a much less steep cutting angle so the cutting edge doesn't just squash against the wire. Either plan on a lot of filing, or cut them to length before you install them (which is what I do regardless of material, because it allows making them a touch narrower than the board so the ends never poke out in low humidity, and because I like spherical fret ends and they're easier to shape before installing).

A dremel cutting wheel would probably work too.

Also try to bend it as close to the board radius as possible before you cut it, and plan on having to clamp each fret down and run thin CA glue around it to keep it from popping back up in the middle (steel is super stiff and springy).

And if you've never tried evo gold wire, you should.

I've always used my Stew-Mac nippers (older, blue handled) and they have held up very well. I believe that they start life as a Channelock nipper.

It is hard on my hands by the end of the job but the nippers hold up fine and as such Dave and I decided that we don't need any more horsepower than what we already have in terms off cutting.

We also don't charge a premium for stainless although I'm thinking of starting to do this since many shops do. My justification even though I don't need one would be not the wear and tear on the tools but the additional time to level and crown.

Part of making money in this trade is not only doing lots of work but watching expenses. We will spare no expense on something that clearly provides value to the client and us but in this case we decided that what we have and do is good enough.

Jescar sells some great cutters for stainless but we decided to keep on keeping on with what we have.

I've been at this for decades now, and when stainless came along I wondered if I should buy new tools to work with it. As for the nippers and so on, the ones I have continue to be trouble free. But when it comes to filing notches for binding and leveling it's much tougher going. I made a jig to hold the fret when doing notches, and my file really screams when leveling frets. But it can be done with patience and determination. Wears out sandpaper very quickly, too. But I knew this from my training in tool and die making that stainless is tough stuff. Beats the heck out of titanium, incaloy, or other exotics.

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We use standard Crescent-brand US-made end cutters reground to nearly flush configuration, as well as one set of 14 year old Crescent-sourced Stewmac cutters. While we have tried both purpose-made steel cutters for stainless wire and one pair with carbide inserts intended for harder materials, the Crescent-branded standard tool steel end cutters seem to do the best job on producing a clean cut which is close to flush.

IMO, EVO is a much more difficult material to trim cleanly, and we have seen more in the way of chipping and edge failure with that material versus Jescar's stainless offerings. The EVO seems to be springier than stainless despite being a softer material, and that makes trimming fret ends more difficult. We use a fret guard bent at 90 degrees and hung over the fret end to keep the finish from chipping or delaminating due to the shock generated when the wire is severed.

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

Hmm interesting. I find Evo much easier to work with then SS. In fact I freakin' hate SS and try and steer people more towards Evo now.

It is but I'll let you in on a little secret. We machine tested stainless, NS and EVO and EVO is nearly as abrasion free as stainless but as you noticed MUCH easier to work with. If only it didn't look like a cheap suit....

It also depends on the kind of nickel silver you're talking about.

A lot of manufactured guitars probably use lower quality fretwire with lower nickel content, since they are cheaper, but they also wear out faster. The stuff from Dunlop, Jascar, etc. are 18% nickel silver and doesn't wear out that fast. I do a refret for a working musician and I never see him again because I do such a great job...

Maybe I should use the cheap stuff to guarantee repeat customers...

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

YEah the look of Evo kept me away from it for a long time then I finally got over it. It's not everyone's cup of tea though for sure.

I tried using some old side cutters I had in the garage, these ones aren't ground flush and they actually seemed to do a pretty good job, well almost as good as my old ground down end nippers did on regular fret wire. I will have to do a little more filing than usual as the fret ends hang out a little bit more, but that's okay, and I'll have to come up with a better way to stop the cut bits from flying across the room. On to levelling and dressing these sucker snow...

I think Evo frets look beautiful with gold hardware and gold MOP. I find EVO to be brittle and harder on the nippers than stainless. Actual fret wear in service seems to be about halfway between NS and SS based on what I see in my heavy wearing players, myself included. (I can destroy a set of NS frets in less than 24 months on my #1 when I play )

I use nothing special or extraordinary for any type of wire and am using my same 10 year old modified side cutters. Up-charges for types of wire are based on time that the actual work takes and as has been noted SS takes a bit longer than either EVO or NS which take about the same.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

EVO does get that cheap junk jewelry look as it tarnishes, but polished, it reminds me of any polished brass.

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

I stopped bothering with Stainless honestly. Trying to file them takes forever (use a very coarse mill bastard to dress the edge then finish it off with diamond stones). It's hard to work with all around except for dressing. I just go with nickel silver and they last long enough.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

We don't find stainless all that much more difficult to use but you do have to tee it up correctly and do all the basics or it will be a pain.

If you are fretting or refretting and you level the board properly very little to nearly no material has to come off the fret tops to get a great level set. You always have to level for the precision that we seek but it can be greatly minimized by leveling the board carefully. If you are replacing only a few frets which we will do from time to time for the cowboy chord crowd carefully selecting wire size and height to match what's already there is key eliminating much of the leveling work.

We make our own fret end files that our students who are on this forum will remember using, mine had the BRW handle. We find that these cut stainless well and are not much more work than using NS.

If you are a hobbyist and don't have clients you certainly have the choice to avoid stainless although good technique really does minimize any extra effort. OTOH if you have clients and either build or repair or both some clients will request stainless and some need it too.

We have a Korean Christian church in our area that promotes abstinence in the college age males who attend it. Several of them we have refretted their Martins multiple times with stainless and they can wear it out with their death grips in as little as six months. We didn't think that this was possible but then again we're not going without sex as a way of life.... . What were we talking about, oh yeah.

Anyway in our experience stainless need not be an unpleasant experience and as far as extra work if you work smart, select wire carefully, shape your fret plane at the board level when possible it's a good option to have and provide.

I'll add that although I've hammered stainless with decent results tapping away and fitting tang sizes to slots carefully pressing stainless frets seems to be easier and more reliable in our experience as well.

Let me tell you about church people..

They LOVE using capos. They could wear out frets made out of high speed steel that way!

It's also hard for me to convince them to give me any work because a lot of them don't want to spend the money for a refret, choosing instead to buy another Breedlove when their frets are worn to the point of being unplayable. It's funny how church people are infatuated with Breedloves, almost like they got deals with churches or something.

I do not think the Koreans wearing stainless steel fret out has anything to do with lack of sex, it's more than likely they put capos on various frets and they use Capos in nearly all of their songs. Capos as you know tends to accelerate fret wear.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Since I only bevel 5-10 degrees ( thanks Hesh ) it doesn't take as much filing.

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I remember one guy when I was doing repairs for a local music shop years ago would wear through the cowboy chords in a matter of months. This was before SS frets were really a thing. And this is Bluegrass country so I imagine he was boom chucka boom all night long and must have had a hand shake that could crush steel.