I never understood why they don't put stainless steel frets on guitar at the factory. The NPS frets always wear grooves and have to be filed down. Would there be any disadvantage to putting stainless steel frets on and using NPS strings? I believe a full fret job to do this is about $300.
"Nothing...can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts."
NPS? What is the acronym for?
Chuck Norris invented Kentucky Fried Chicken's famous secret recipe, with eleven herbs and spices. But nobody ever mentions the twelfth ingredient: Fear!
ChuckNorrisFactsdotCom
NPS? What is the acronym for?Nickel-plated steel. As strings, it's supposed to give a bright tone, and result in less fret wear. (Or so they say.)
When you're rubbing two solid objects together the way we do frets and strings when we play (and some of us more so than others), something's got to give. The strings may be wearing down the frets, depending on what each is made of and/or the player's style. You could also have frets that wear out strings and seem to laugh at anything the strings (and player) are doing in return. That's the advantage (or disadvantage, especially if you're a string) to stainless frets.
I don't know if they come standard, but I think the Parkers offer stainless steel frets on some of their instruments. You can also get ss frets on Warmoth replacement necks - at a slightly higher price of course. I think most fretwire is nickel-silver (I haven't heard of it being nickel plated steel) and yah, it's a lot softer than a steel string. Pretty durable though, except if you play constantly, which I guess most of us do!
Strings on the other hand, are steel. The unwrapped ones. The wound ones have a steel core (for electrics and flattop acoustics) and either pure nickel winding, or nickel plated steel windings. Or stainless steel windings, which is where you get a lot of fretwear.
But it does make sense to have harder frets and softer string material.
Best regards.
I don't know if they come standard, but I think the Parkers offer stainless steel frets on some of their instruments. You can also get ss frets on Warmoth replacement necks - at a slightly higher price of course. I think most fretwire is nickel-silver (I haven't heard of it being nickel plated steel) and yah, it's a lot softer than a steel string. Pretty durable though, except if you play constantly, which I guess most of us do!You're right about the Parkers. (Catch an Ed Roman rant about it here: http://www.edromanguitars.com/tech/stainlessfrets.htm . And I think I got the "NPS" of strings mixed up with the nickel silver of frets. ("I am not a metallurgist, nor do I play one on TV." :lol: )
So there's an argument of longer wear vs. tone quality. Dunno how many of us could tell a difference in a blindfolded test. Anyone want to apply for a governemt grant and study that? :wink:
Even minor string wear manifests quickly as tuning, intonation and breakage issues. We don't really want anything to wear -- either fret or string; plus we want good sounds, good playability and good durability. So there are balances to be struck in fret and string compositions that optimize tone, wear, feel, workability, material cost and -- for frets -- repairability.
One POV would be that a guitar is a living entity, whose many parts age and change and will require constant maintenance over its lifetime. A fret job is only part of this.
-=tension & release=-
I hear ya Greg. I made this post because I'm unhappy that I seem to drive grooves in my frets faster than anyone I know. Over time I may get better about that. Nevertheless, I'll have my guitar in the shop for another fret filing in a few months. Fortunately the SG's have tall frets, lol.
"Nothing...can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts."
