tom nair Posted April 30, 2008 Share Posted April 30, 2008 I had to refret my two tear old Sheraton. I found a great luthier and I went with stumac jumbo frets. He also installed a bone nut and the guitar sounds much better. The new frets blow away the stock ones. Ok, lets see how crazy I am Classic 57 Gibson pickups and complete rewire 200.00 Refret 260.00 bone nut 35.00 I now have a 1100.00 Sheraton. I think I will have another beer and find a place to hide from the wife. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TWANG Posted April 30, 2008 Share Posted April 30, 2008 well hey. you just got many many years of great playing and great sound.. all out an instrument you already love.. hard to top that. a little pricey on the nut. (pic pic pic) *S* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tom nair Posted April 30, 2008 Author Share Posted April 30, 2008 I have posted pictures on other threads. It's just the usual black Shery with black pickguard. I painted the underside of it. Got the idea from here. My Epi dealer said that most guy's that buy Epiphones don't play nearly as much as I do but then I was thinking about proffessonals like The Beatles, Heart, and many others. I wonder how long their frets lasted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RotcanX Posted April 30, 2008 Share Posted April 30, 2008 You must play that thing eight hours a day to need a re-fret so soon. I'm frankly amazed that the wear could be so advanced that a simple levelling wouldn't fix it. Hopefully you'll do better with the new frets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tom nair Posted April 30, 2008 Author Share Posted April 30, 2008 I only play about ten to fifteen hours a week. I have never gone through frets on a guitar like this. I Must have had some really bad frets to begin with. I did not have divits but they were completly flat from bending. Go figure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garyelcrrt1281733995 Posted April 30, 2008 Share Posted April 30, 2008 You weren't using diamond dust coated strings? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluefoxicy Posted April 30, 2008 Share Posted April 30, 2008 Some of the frets (like fret 6 and 7) on my Special II are already pretty flat compared to the rest. It's funny, I bet I could divot them with a fingernail. I mean, you can see the wear pattern looking on top, and then the same thing on a lower fret but much thinner across, then below that it just looks nice and round. I hear tell some fretwire uses harder metal than others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RotcanX Posted May 1, 2008 Share Posted May 1, 2008 Well, I know that you can get stainless steel frets ($$$) but as to the alloys used in regular production frets I guess it's to be expected, as with all else, that there are levels of quality and hardness. I suppose it's possible that if you used Dunlop fretwire you'd be getting better quality than whatever it is the Korean and Chinese manufacturers are using. I haven't seen any extreme cases of wear as Tom is describing but I have heard other complaints on the old Epi forum and anything can happen. This could also be something that varies according to the actual builder; it would be interesting to gather data on this and see where the guitars with the softest frets are coming from (Samick/Peerless/Unsung/Saein/Qingdao/DeaWon). Perhaps one of Epiphone's subcontractors received a bad batch of fret wire... anything's possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tom nair Posted May 1, 2008 Author Share Posted May 1, 2008 I tried to get dunlop with no success. They could not provide the right wire close enough to my tang with. Long story. You also pretty much have to get through a dealer. My luthier had been using stumac for years with no problems so I went with it. I use d'adario 10's. I hear stainless steel frets are really hard on strings. Check your guitars out guys. When you bend a note is it perfectly clear? or do you here the string bottoming out on the fret? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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