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Stainless steel fretwire for compound radius
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Stainless steel fretwire for compound radius
Hey!
I have a friend who builds flat tops who wants to give stainless a try. I have done a handful of refrets and he was asking advice.
He is using a compound radius from 14” to 20”. Jeskar sells the coils and they come in 10”. I have only done installs where the wire matches the board precisely. I bought pre cut pre radius bags for these re frets.
Has anyone worked on a compound radius. Do you radius each fret on a bender or can you get away with some mis-match?
Any info appreciated! Thanks!
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2 Replies
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You do want stainless to be close to your radius, if just a bit tighter to ensure the ends stay down. It’s a good idea to either buy or make your own fret bender. I made mine for maybe $10-$15 with a few roller bearings, washers, bolts, a window crank, and a scrap peice of wood.
Once you have a bender you can bend some length to a particular radius, cut it off the stick, change the radius as needed, bend more, etc.
I refretted a fanned fret 8 string in stainless last week and while it’s impractical to customize each fret I just bent enough wire to cover a few frets at a time. Worked just fine.
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Here are some pictures of my bender. Pretty simple. just a few bearings washers and bolts.
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