Anyone else a fan of vintage frets?

[smsuryan]

My main guitar has stainless steel vintage frets and a 7.25 radi. These seem to be the least popular radius and fret size, but I’ve always felt at home with this set up. My other guitars have the largest size frets Jim Dunlop sells, whatever that is…and they play great also. However, this vintage style guitar just feels like coming home. The feel of that neck just does it for me. I can bend to my hearts content, no fret out or problems often associated with this style. Anyone else love vintage frets.?

 

[dsutton24]

I'm not s fan of juge frets, mostly because I'm so heavy-handed. I can do key changes just by mashing the heck out of the strings.

 

[Nogoodnamesleft]

Me. My first guitar was an old Kay and it had small frets. I’m definitely a fan.

Things like using capos are easier. And they’re more akin to the smaller size of tied on frets (gut/nylon) on some other stringed instruments.

 

[Lou Tencodpees]

Yeah, I feel most at home on 7.25" radius and 6230 fret wire. I also get along with 6150, even 6100 wire. For some reason I struggle with 6105. I have one neck with those frets that I just re-leveled and re-crowned to get them lower.

 

[Nicko_Lps]

I like narrow tall frets, medium jumbo are fine for me as well. Nickel silver for me, i dont need SS frets because i dont want that extra treble bite that comes along.

Made some necks for a gigantic dude, he had his first leveling after 8 months. This man needs SS frets, i still have the same frets since 2002 i had mine done.

 

[archetype]

I like all fret sizes except for mongo-huge railroad tie frets. My James Burton Standard has vintage sized frets that I've played on for years.

 

[ChicknPickn]

Not me. But then, I'm a big bender. I'm also no fan of jumbo frets, or even medium jumbo ones, for the reasons @dsutton24 mentioned.

Anything close to a "medium" fret is my preference. A 10-14 compound radius and a Fender "modern C" neck profile come together nicely for me. In the Gibson world, medium frets and the "slim taper" neck profile feel great. The slim taper really doesn't feel all that slim to me.

I've also backed away from tall/narrow frets. Too "bumpy."

 

[Jakedog]

I do not care for them. Just too small. I can kinda handle them if they’re on something with a flatter radius. Like the Clapton. It has vintage frets and a 9.5” radius. I can handle that, if I *have* to. Thankfully I don’t have to. Likewise, I can kinda handle a 7.25” radius. If it’s got large frets. The combination of vintage frets and radius is generally speaking, positively useless. For me.

For finished maple fretboards I prefer very large frets. For rosewood I can go narrow tall, medium jumbo, jumbo, really doesn’t matter as long as they have enough height.

I have also never understood the complaints about pulling the guitar out of tune with large frets. I’m seriously heavy handed. Like, angry ape heavy handed. My main guitar has jumbos. It has been my main guitar for a little over two and half years. By this time next year, it’s going to need a full re-fret. I’ll be going stainless. That’s how heavy handed I am. I don’t pull it out of tune.

I’ve often wondered if these guitars aren’t instead being pushed out of tune? Like your fingers aren’t dragging on the board, or touching it for stability, so you’re accidentally slightly bending the strings across the frets and not realizing it? Because even as heavy handed as I am, I cannot push down hard enough on 10 gauge strings to put the guitar noticeably out of tune while playing a song. I can do it if I really concentrate on one note. But it’s definitely not something that occurs easily.

All that said, we should all play whatever we like. Screw looks, and screw arbitrary rules made up by a lot of people who probably don’t make their living playing music anyway.

Play what feels the best. And learn to love it for that reason. If that’s vintage, great. If that’s modern, that’s great too. But always keep in mind that “tradition” is mostly just peer pressure from old people.

 

[Highway 49]

They’re fine for me - Fenders look better with small frets, and with a good setup, I don’t have a problem with my Classic Series guitars… not being able to play them very well is down to me, not the frets

 

[Mike Simpson]

I do not like itty bitty banjo frets on a guitar, I prefer tall medium frets and 9.5” radius. I sold guitars because of 7.25” radius and itty bitty frets and one reason I never play my 50’s classic Strat.

 

[43mmNut]

I prefer narrow tall frets, but vintage ones are ok too.
I'd say most of my guitars are narrow fretted, but the guitar I've been playin the most,recently, has vintage frets- my '51 AVII Prototype White Tele.

 

[Gimble]

My first real Fender was a MIM standard strat with vintage frets, only had that guitar for years.

I remember going into music stores to browse and was always surprised by guitars with medium jumbo frets - just felt like so much was in the way.

I have an Am Pro II tele now and it’s the best of both worlds with its tall narrow frets.

Nothing to feel like it’s in the way but easy to grab the strings for bends.

I play with a very light touch - I think my finger tips don’t touch the fretboard much if at all!

 

[ChicknPickn]

I have also never understood the complaints about pulling the guitar out of tune with large frets.

If I concentrate, I can play with a light touch on jumbos and sound okay. But I like the feel of my fingertips making contact with the wood, and getting there with a jumbo fret close to the nut always results in something less than desirable. I do not claim to have textbook hand position, but I really am trying to improve in that area.

But because I'm lazy and don't want to have to concentrate, a lower fret is better.

 

[LostGonzo85]

I used to feel the same because it was what I was used to, but I recently had my MIJ '54 Strat refretted with 6105s and am completely sold. I find them to promote a lighter left-hand touch without having to drop a string gauge, and honestly feel like there's zero downside. I had my luthier add a slight compound to the upper frets as well. Pick the guitar up and it still feels like a vintage Strat - the frets aren't so big that it feels scalloped, but it's much forgiving which for me, rather than promoting sloppiness (I'm classically trained), promotes confidence to go for things I might think twice about if I was worried about a note not ringing clearly or choking out or some other limitation of the guitar. When I pick up my Tele, which still has vintage frets, I don't mind it - it's set up well and plays clean, but next time it needs a refret, it'll be 6105s, possibly stainless since all the double stop country bends I'm doing on seem to wear them down pretty quickly.

 

[24 track]

I usually don't notice fret size , or more accurately I don't pay attention , how ever my Norlin era 73 SG standard is a fretless wonder and soo easy to play I could see that on all my guitars, very low action and wide frets that were properly finished from the factory ( a rarity these days).

 

[trapdoor2]

99.44% of what I play is on 19th C banjos...so yes, I like them. However, I prefer jumbos on my electric guitars. The extra wide ones feel like parking lot speed bumps...but only takes a minute or two to get used to them.

 

[Wrong handed]

I like them. They're not my favourite frets, but they're nice. Some things are almost impossible to play on them, as they create too much staccato, but for chordal rhythm they feel great, and it's harder to go out of tune by pressing too hard.

 

[memorex]

I don't like huge jumbo frets, but vintage Fender frets (0.043"H) are too low, and strings pop out from under my fingers when bending more than two half steps. On the other hand, the Fender Tall Narrow frets (0.047"H X 0.092"W) are better but feel a little pointy. That's why I now use Dunlop 6150 stainless (0.047"H X 0.104"W). They're high enough for easy bending, they feel comfortable to my fingers, and being stainless, they don't wear out. If stainless sound a little different, I don't care, I'm done with fret jobs. I have two Musikraft Tele necks with 6150 stainless frets that are at least 8 years old, and neither shows any signs of fret wear.

 

[Recalcitrant]

Chords sound so good on those vintage frets, don’t they? They make for such neat n tidy rhythms. Buddy Holly must have had them. But like many I’m a 6100 guy. I wonder if we just accept the over-ripe modern timbre without even hearing it anymore!

 

[KelvinS1965]

I was for many years: My JV Strat is a '57 spec (not that I knew what that meant at the time in terms of radius and frets) which I bought new in 1982. I also bought an Epiphone Les Paul in 1995 which (I now know) had vintage frets too.

Up until my late 40s all the guitars I had used vintage frets. I didn't particularly know that until around that time when I was reading on forums. I then specifically bought a Classic 50s Tele because it had 7.25" and vintage frets, so that felt 'normal' to me.

However, as time has gone on I've now got a mix of guitars with vintage tall and medium jumbo frets and of course still have the ones with the vintage frets too. I actually had the LP refretted with medium jumbo because by then I'd bought a Gibson SG with them and decided I really liked them. Unfortunately I'd already had my (Maple fretboard) JV Strat refretted with vintage frets, otherwise I think now I would have had them done with vintage tall ones.

I hadn't played the JV Strat much until recently due to some wiring repairs I hadn't got round to doing. However, now they are done and I'm really enjoying the sound of it I've been playing it much more. It felt a bit odd at first, but after a few songs I settled into it again. Strange how what was once 'normal' for me took a little adjustment again. I then played my usual gigging Strat with a really fat neck, 9.5" radius and vintage tall frets and it felt odd for a few songs again.

Tl;dr I'm a fan of any guitar that I can adjust to after a couple of songs, provided I like the general feel of it and the sound it makes.