fret wear

Robbmonster

There is a Squier neck on sale on ebay. I'm not looking to buy, but I was wondering about the frets on this neck...

They look to me to be rather badly damaged. I sent the seller a message, and he said it was 'fret wear', and did not affect playability at all.

I always thought fret wear was just the frets getting thinner and thinner due to bending, vibrato, and so on.

Is the guy talking crap, or is THIS what fret wear actually is?

jacksonjackass

That guy is a complete moron/conman

Tell him to put that it really needs a refret in bold or you'll report him to ebay. If not I will.

Robbmonster

someone said: Hi, this neck has been played well, this is what you call fret-wear! Although it looks major, you'll still have about 75% fret life left. As for unplayable, this is not the case. Not all frets look this bad. The neck is 24 years old, it's started to take shape & a re-fret is a little while off yet. cheers

Well, here's the ad...

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Squier-strat-gui ... 33578b4beb

And this is the email we exchanged...

funtoosh

i'd actually think that a good set-up by a luthier should fix the frets for now. nothing i would do myself though, and i guess most people wouldn't/shouldn't do it themselves.

(personally, i'm in love with low, worn down frets. not a fan of jumbo at all.)

foxyloxy

My mustang frets look like that, and it plays fine.

NathanStang75

An i thoght my j-s was in a bad way.... 😲

BanditGuitarist1

That is worn frets it is technically fret wear but its VERYYYYY HEAVY!! How old is that Squire...the only guitars I've seen with that kind of wear are vintage guitars usually. I know my 67' Mustang has wear similar but not nearly as severe and those are original frets.

funtoosh

depends on what you do to your guitar. my brother uses door handles for slides, and i've seen him destroy frets within weeks . . .

BanditGuitarist1

funtoosh said: depends on what you do to your guitar. my brother uses door handles for slides, and i've seen him destroy frets within weeks . . .

DOOR HANDLE SLIDES 😲😲

Robbmonster

funtoosh said: depends on what you do to your guitar. my brother uses door handles for slides, and i've seen him destroy frets within weeks . . .

I didn't visit the listing again, but I think it was a Korean Squier from somewhere around 85-87.

That must be why my slide playing sounds so awful. I've been trying for years to avoid making contact with frets when playing slide 😛

Fran

The seller is'nt misleading you, depending on your preferred string gauge. If you use 8's you'll have problems, if you use 11s you'll probably be fine. Either way, they'll soon need stoning and re-profiling, thats quite some heavy wear.

Marlonmm

I bet refretting it would cost more than the actual price of the neck.

Similar things happen to my mustang. So when I notice the strings' nickel coat has worn out, I replace them immediately. I think the metal of the strings will eat away the softer fret wires. Not sure if someone here has the same opinion.