[vansinn]

Been wondering why exactly we all use some nickes alloy for frets, and why they're T-shaped?

Tradition maybe.. of cause frets need to be fastened, so pressing into a slot seems a natural approach.
I read in lotsa places tightbonding or epoxying frets is advicable to avoid loose frets, resulting in loss of tone and sustain.

So, I wonder, why not simply epoxy glue round stainless wire into a U-shaped routed groove..
It's said real jumbo frets are better for tone and sustain due to larger mass. If so, using a solid wire/rod will increase mass even further.

My ideas goes further..
Any material has it's own 'sonic' properties.
A titanium rod for instance produce a weird set of totally uneven harmonics. Though an interesting sound, it's hardly useful for a church bell
Likewise, nickel allow frets will have their own harmonic distribution.

The other day I was shopping hobby materials, and stumbled over some epoxy bonded carbon fibre rods and tubes; cheap too..
Besides strength and weight, they seemed to be fairly tonedead, having, not really a distinct tone, but kinda halfways resonating with a fast decay at a few hundreds hertz.

I can't help thinking they may be interesting as a fret material.
Sure, it's difficult knowing how it'll sound, but still, being somewhat dead, they ought not to colorize the tone. Whether or not it'll provide a good tone and sustain..

Besides above impirical observations, I'm unsure of their surface hardness.
Being epoxy bonded with heat and pressure, the nicely gloss surface surely is the epoxy layer.
There's quite a difference between hardening epoxy at room temperature and the heat/pressure method used with industrial manufactoring.

Comments?

[Desecrated]

It sounds interesting, I'm bookmarking for better answers then this.

[vansinn]

Which part(s)? The round wire fret or the carbon stuff?

Whichever, I'll shop a few rods monday and perform some experiments..

[Desecrated]

both.

[newamerikangospel]

that is very intersting indeed...

[hirah]

from what i gather, alot of luthiers dont like to work with harder fret material like stainless steel. it i s much harder than nickel.tone wise its supposedly brighter, but i never tried stainless frets.
the idea of a u shaped slot for the frets is interesting. but i think what you gain in mass from the frets you lose in the fretboard. does it matter? not sure.

[ChrisLetchford]

I love stainless steel frets. I had a a Parker fly classic at one time.

I have heard the same thing, its because they are harder to level, crown and polish.

[Jongpil Yun]

Originally Posted by ChrisLetchford

I have heard the same thing, its because they are harder to level, crown and polish.

Truth. Some custom builders will charge you extra in labor if you request SS frets.

[ElRay]

Originally Posted by vansinn

So, I wonder, why not simply epoxy glue round stainless wire into a U-shaped routed groove..

You mean like this: Anatomy of a TK (you may need to click on the "5/32" stainless steel frets" link on the left.

There's been talk of this before. I plan to go this route. I'm even thinking of using the one grade of SS that is actually magnetic, so I can make magnetic single-string capos.

Ray

[xwmucradiox]

Frets depend entirely on mass to give sustain. The advantage of carbon fibre is the high strength to weight ratio. They dont, however, have very much mass so they would absorb almost all the resonance. It would also be harder to dress them and bending would eventually wear through the epoxy and grind on the carbon which would make carbon dust which is toxic. Bell brass is sometimes used for bass frets but nickel silver is popular because its cheap and easy to work.