Hardness of fretwire

[simso]

A recent topic on another forum was discussing how hard fretwire really is and how some guitars wear way quicker than others.

Its a good topic, as I currently have a guitar in, where the customer has chewed through the frets, apparently its 8 months old, been fret levelled twice and now needs replacement

Doing research (google trolling), I did not find much information out there, except for a few quotes which if you cross-reference with each other they are sort of like chinese whispers and reflect what another person said with no true origin.

Up until now, I sort of know approximate hardness's from the feel of the wire, I use to do hardness testing on aircraft and would certify that hardness to an international standard, so I do have an idea of how it works.

Having not done it properly for at least 20 yrs, I went and contacted a good friend who still does it for a living to be able to quantify my results.

I have a hardness tester, whilst the shape and profile of the fret may make it difficult to be able to give the perfect measurement, eg indentation must be 1/10 of material thickness and minimum material width to prevent elasticising of the side walls, it will definitely be able to give a comparative measurement from one fret to another.

So taking all that into consideration, I hardness tested a couple of frets this morning, the first was a fret I removed from a gibson les paul (in for a refret) and the second was one from my stewmac fretwire container.

The original Gibson wire rated 108 Rockwell F
The Stewmac wire rated 96 Rockwell F

I have to fit some Dunlop 6105 accufrets into the Gibson tomoz, so will measure one of the off cuts when doing it (stupid accufrets come pre-cut and straight, doubles refretting time)

Realistically I do not think it makes a huge difference, but its good to know

Steve

[Dave M]

You could have your work cut out there Steve. Unfortunately I guess we can't count on a manufacturer being consistent.

I seem to remember Trevor G saying that some of them anneal before forming so they would be pretty soft.

[simso]

Agreed, it was more curiosity than anything else that got me to actually hardness test a couple.

Might roll one of the stewmac frets back and forth a few times and see if that can increase its hardness to bring it close to gibsons one.

Steve

[Ormsby Guitars]

Need some stainless steel wire?

[simso]

Nah all good perry, got some, customer still wants nickel silver, was experimenting.

Steve

[routout]

I normally roll back and forth it will harden it a little these were done using the full length wire though,by the look of the crimp in the end of some of the Dunlop i would say it was drawn through a series of rollers to get it flat .

[simso]

Its curious how they are made, I am envisaging they are shape extruded and then possibly stamped in lengths for the tangs, but guessing...

Steve

[routout]

From what I have seen It looks like it is drawn through a die to create the crown and tang then I guess a set of rollers to put the indents in ,not un like a knurl .