SS 6150 & 6105: Help Please!

[Cagey]

USACG is an offshoot of Warmoth. Some former employees had their own ideas regarding how to attack the replacement guitar neck/body parts market and went off to do it. They do a good job, but they necessarily have to differentiate themselves. So does LMII, Carver, et al. That's why you see different part numbers for what's essentially the same thing. The differences are often very small, but that's just to keep them out of court. At one time, Dunlop fret numbers were a standard etched in stone. Any more, the various resellers buy from whoever wants to dedicate a roll-form line to fretwire.

So, if you know the rough dimensions of the wire you want, you can get damnably close to them from just about anybody. Forget about the part numbers. Look at the dimensions and material.

 

[Afd1469]

Great thread!  This should be a sticky somewhere.

 

[Cagey]

It would appear that you're fairly new here. If no one has welcomed you, let me be the first.

If you're new to the board, you'll find that there are a lot of interesting/instructional/enlightening threads here. There are a lot of people with a great deal of talent who share their knowledge/experience just for fun. Helluva resource, really.

If the admins made every insightful thread "sticky", pretty much the whole board would be a multi-faceted Shell No-Pest Strip <grin>

 

[burgundy]

I definitely like the sound of slicker bends and vibrato, and frets that are more resistant to grooves and flattening. Is the lesser malleability of SS frets a big problem though? I've heard they're harder to dress and many techs will simply refuse. I can imagine ordering a neck and wanting at least the fret ends bevelled a bit, some people report pretty angular edges straight out of the box, and maybe get a shade knocked off the height on a taller fret.

Ideally I guess we'd all cycle through various necks with different frets until we found the perfect exact dimensions but if anyone has the cash to purchase and replace multiple Strat necks from different companies with different fret ranges until they bump into what they like, it isn't me. Hence all this trying to narrow the field on the internet  ??? The trying in shops approach only really works if you're shopping for premade guitars, and I think I'm probably going to stay hooked on the guitar-building thing. Already have three projects mapping out in my mind simultaneously.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

Rounding off the fret ends, you can do yourself. It's actually easier with SS frets, I think, because the file cuts more slowly and so you get more accuracy in your work. A tech that refuses to dress SS frets is basically a rubbish tech and shouldn't get your business.

 

[stubhead]

JESCAR is a really big player in the fretwire department, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Warmoth and USACG are both on the list of Jescar's OEM users. There are also some Oriental makers, but attempting to trace the origins of everyone's wire, yikes.

http://www.jescar.com/why.html
http://www.jescar.com/fretwire.html

Mmmm! You get a little discount if you buy 5 pounds!
I kinda doubt there even IS a Dunlop Fretwire Factory, that's not how things work anymore.

"Why, yes... ever since I changed my frets to the .000369% chromium/moly/golly alloy, the Grammy's have been piling up, tooth decay is allieviated and the girls, they melt like butter...."

I will say this: Though I really like scalloped fretboards for playing specific parts and would be unhappy in a studio without one guitar so armed, if you're playing chords, standing up, in a band situation, you'd better spend some time practicing with scalloped fretboards, playing chords, standing up, in a band situation. (Same caveat as fretless basses). Not all surprises are happy ones.

Have you noticed the massively-burgeoning trend of metal guitarists putting their right leg up on a monitor during solos? No it's not so they can "feel the music" (you perv) it's because giant frets and guitars slung around knee height don't work too well together.

Big frets = thumb behind the neck
flaphanded Jimmy Page licks = "medium" (.047max) frets

There's tricks to Wizard-neck shreddy playing (thumb in back, pointing right at the headstock), but the most schooled & precise benders these days are the country guys - thumb in back and big necks. Almost every guitarist you hear can either bend, or shred; but not at the same time. There's like two people in the world who can mix them up completely - Petrucci & Morse. Gee I wonder if they ever practice....

 

[Jumble Jumble]

Don't be silly, they just make sure they have a finish that lets their guitar breathe.