#fretwire

Guitar owner: “the guitar fretboard is pretty rough , not as smooth as it suppose to be”.

(when the guitar taken out from his guitar bag.... guess what!?  OH COKE  !!! grimes everywhere, worn out fret wire, rusty old strings, tarnished fret wire, dry fretboard) 

Guitar tech: No Worries man, your guitar need partial refrets and PROPER CLEAN UP .

Find out more on refrets: https://www.tumblr.com/edit/159293756695/?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fmaestroguitars.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F159293756695%2Ffret-wire-worn-out-fret-wire-best-re-fret-ever

Appropriate cleaning and conditioning of your guitar is essential. Apart from hygienic reason, it’s also affect the tone(sublte) and playability(mostly).  It’s not difficult to clean and condition a guitar.

When we play a guitar for a period of time, our dead skin cells, sweat, and dirt will built up and makes the fretboard looks unattractive. Furthermore, the moisture, low ph rating (acidic) , and salts in sweat cause the wood around the frets to deteriorate. Gradually, rot and dry the fingerboard, which results in loose frets and very expensive repairs. WORSE scenario; when sweat evaporates, it takes away the moisture of the wood , which dry up the wood &  lead to CRACKS !!!!!!! and that’s terrifying.

TO CLEAN & CONDITIONING the fretboard.

(Note: Below i will demostrate to clean ONLY one fret; so that you can do a comparison with the adjacent fret) 

- Assess the fretboard 

- Remove the old strings 

  OMG!! You have no idea!! Now your know (photo above) 

- Apply ZIPPO (it’s lighter fluid & of course stay away from any sparks or fire!!!!) on very fine steel wool. We use zippo because it’s not water and evaporate faster

- Gently brush the greenish greenish dirts away using steel wool. (Photo below)

- The tarnish fret wire, can’t be easily brushed away by just using steel wool; It’s just too STUBBORN !! So we need stronger weapon to overkill those dirts. I think you got it... .OH YEA!! BEHOLD!!!  the Fret wire BUFFING WHEEL !!! (photo Below) 

- As the fretboard is too dry , we use our Maestro premium lemon oil  to condition our fretboard (photo below)

-Rub it using our Maestro DRI cloth or clean rag. (photo below).

- ABRACADABRA!!!! (photo below) 

The difference is obvious, the fretboard with a dot of inlay it looks fresher , the wood color looks darker and the fretwire just beg to be played. On the other side, the fretboard is dry and the fretwire just looks unattractive. 

Suggestion: If you are not comfortable to clean the fretboard, Please leave it to the professional.

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Maestro guitar HQ & Hospital

9 Kaki Bukit Road 2 Gordon Warehouse Unit #04-34 Singapore 417842

Opening Hours: Weekdays -9am to 6pm Saturday - 10am to 2pm Sunday & PH - Close

Book Appointment!!!!

Tel: 6844 6030 (Maestro guitar HQ & Hospital), 63378687 (Maestro Concept store)

Please feel free to visit our website:

#You don’t need a rocket scientist to tell you that all guitars have frets (except you are fond of fretless guitar).

Materials for fret wire:

1)Nickel-silver (NS) fretwire:

it’s the standard materials and most often used on fretted instrument

Cheaper as compare to other fret wire materials

Worn out rate is faster than SS & EVO fretwire

2)Stainless steel (SS) fretwire:

HELL !!!! lot of request for guitar player to have this SS fretwire on their guitar fretboard

EXTREMELY HARD!!!! for guitar builder and technician to work with & blunting our cutting tools in fast pacing rate.

EXPENSIVE !!! but WORTH EVERY PENNY!!!!

Hardly oxidized/ Tarnished, stay shinny .. like ..forever

By far, it’s the hardest to worn out

3) EVO fretwire:

It’s golden in colour (OMG !!!!!!!!! it looks FUCKING awesome!!!) 

Slightly harder for guitar builder and technician to work with as compare to NS fret.

Harder than NS fretwire but softer than SS fretwire

EXPENSIVE !!! (in fact more expensive than Stainless steel fretwire) but WORTH EVERY PENNY!!!! 

Harder to worn out

Fret wire conditions:

There are several conditions we probably seen it and overlook it:

- Dirty frets (photo above)

-Worn out fret (photo above)

- flat fret & extreme low fret (photo above) 

-loose fret (photo above) 

- Uneven fret height (The photo above are served as an example, the uneven fret doesn’t only apply on fret#2 or 1, it applies to any fret on a guitar fretboard)

(note: To check uneven fret you need to ensure the neck is dead straight by adjusting the trussrod, use a straight-edge to compare one fret with the adjacent fret on the fret board)

REFRET

Generally, refretting job is painstakingly time consuming job and required hell lot of attention to details and focus.

A professional guitar builder/ technician will advice you whether your guitar need a full refret or partial refret

Below are the example & general steps taken to do a full refret from NS to SS fretwire :

-Proper heat up the fretwire to loosen up the glue (just in case there is glue inside the fretwire slot)

-Carefully and slowly pull out the fret wire (photo shown below).

- Clear the debris away from the fretwire slot. (photo shown below).

-Adjusting trussrod to straighten the neck to dead flat

- Leveled and smoothed up the surface by fine sanding it using radius profile sanding block. (photo shown below).

- Used long straight edge to check the evenness of the fretboard.

- Bend the SS fretwire into desire curvature (photo shown below).

- Cut the SS fretwire according to each length of the fret slot. 

- Cut away the excess tang by using tang nipper

- Manually bend the SS fretwire again whenever necessary before hammering into the fret slot

- Carefully hammered in the SS fretwire into the fret slot. (photo shown below)

- Carefully filed away the sharp edges of the SS fretwires. (photo shown below)

- The smooth edge of the fretwire not only looks good , it also ensure the safety of the guitarist hand won’t be cut by the fretwire.  (photo shown below) 

- The guitar will go into our PLEK STATION for fret leveling

- In Maestro guitar Hospital, we are confident that we can offer the BEST re-fret job in Singapore because we engaged PLEK station which can deliver the BEST OPTIMIZED!!!! fret dressing in the whole universe.  (photo shown below)

- After the fret wire being PLEK’D, all SS fretwire will be polished  (photo shown below)  

- String up the guitar will new set of strings

- Do necessary setup for the guitar

- TADA!!!!!!! 

FAQ:

Will SS fretwire affects the playability and tone?

Tone: Yes, you will get slightly brighter tone. The effect is more noticeable on acoustic guitar

Playability: Yes, improved. AND if you want an extra slippery feel along with super smooth bending.

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Maestro guitar HQ & Hospital

9 Kaki Bukit Road 2 Gordon Warehouse Unit #04-34 Singapore 417842

Opening Hours: Weekdays -9am to 6pm Saturday - 10am to 2pm Sunday & PH - Close

Book Appointment!!!!

Tel: 6844 6030 (Maestro guitar HQ & Hospital), 63378687 (Maestro Concept store)

Please feel free to visit our website: