refretting a Dupont

shega

Hello everyone

my 1997 Dupont MD-30 needs to be refretted. My favorite shop here in colorado was surprised by the dimensions of the frets the guitar shipped with, and was unable to locate any direct replacements.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I would like to refret it just as it was, as I love the tall, wide fretwire Mr. Dupont used for it.

The dimensions are .112 wide and .040 tall. It would be great to order some so that he can do it the best way.

thanks so much. I am the original owner, and have ground these frets into nubs in a few places!

shega

Craig Bumgarner

I think both LMII and Stewmac sell a .053" x .110" "jumbo" fret wire.

Correct me if I am wrong, but .040" fret height is not particularly high. Anything between .039" and .048" is pretty standard I think. A fret wire a lot of people use is .043" x .079"

Consider too the existing frets may have been dressed and crowned at some point, even when new and may not reflect the original fret wire dimensions.

Here is a chart of fret wires:

http://www.lutherie.net/fret.chart.html

BTW, anyone have any experience with EVO Gold fret wire? I wonder if, being harder, it would wear the windings on our copper wound Argentine strings too rapidly, something they are already prone to.

Ken Bloom

I've used the EVO gold fret wire quite a bit and find it a wonderful thing. It is about as easy to work with as the standard nickel silver but wears MUCH longer. It is not available in as many heights and widths as the nickel silver wire but it certainly does a great job. I haven't found any difference as far as string wear goes. A thin winding, like on the G string will go fairly fast no matter what you do. I have one instrument that has had gold frets on it and played almost daily for the last four years with almost no fret wear. I like this stuff.

Ken Bloom
http://www.boweddulcimer.com

Jeff Moore

I'd rather change strings real often than have to do one extra fret job.
Gold color? Sounds attractive, and if it lasts rea long, price becomes almost irrelevant. I'm gonna search and price it right now!
I don't know what wire harmony used by the brass colored stuff lasts forever, by the way.

shega

Thanks for the information, Craig. I just looked into the EVO and contacted luthier Paul Hostetter for advice. He echoed the sentiment that Jescar EVO is his favorite for these types of guitars.

BTW, just looked at your blogs, and am swooning at your guitars. Seems like we may be destined to meet one day!

thanks!

Al Watsky

EVO wire is very good.
I bought a few pounds in various sizes a while ago and have just about gone through a pound of the .104 x .047 size.
I've installed the EVO alloy in just about every type of fretted instrument at this point and think its a real winner. In fact unless there is a request other wise , its the wire that gets used.
Durability is king , it does not prematurely wear the strings. Takes a bit more from the installer due to its hardness, but thats OK. Its slightly more expensive, but worth it in every way.
Stands up to SS bass strings pretty darn well as it happens !
It does very slightly brighten things up but to a degree that is not troubling even to very particular professional players.
All in all I love it .
Less fret milling in the long run .
If you take to time to set up an instrument as close to perfection as possible why be faced with changing that set up every 6 months because of fret wear.
Players that use their instruments constantly as a working tool will get used to anything its true, but the time for old school fret wire in the aftermarket is over IMO.
EVO

Bob Holo

I've been using the Evo gold for a while now. I started using it when Paul Mehling told me that Paul Hostettler re-fretted his guitar with it and it was the first wire he hadn't been able to shred. It is easier to work with than stainless and I think plays better than stainless for my taste. I like the feel of softer fretwires personally, but the Evo is still soft enough to where it feels like normal fretwire - or very darned close to it, and it wears very well. In terms of hardness, the Jescar Evo is Vicker 250 which puts it between Nickel which runs I believe 180-220-ish and stainless which ?? I think is at or over 300 if you get the good stuff. My last four or five builds have had Evo. I like it and it complies with EU nickel laws (bureaucracy at its finest) I may transition to it permanently but I'm not entirely sure. I have found no downsides to it, and one upside (durability for severe fret shredders) but then again, the Stewmac 149 that I used as a standard for years wears very well. I still have a very warm place in my heart for SM149 and I wouldn't hesitate to use it unless the player was a fairly heavy fret shredder. But yes, I like Evo... I use it... Selenium Titanium Iron Copper feels a little different than Nickel Copper, but not in a bad way. Stainless has a kind of roughness to it unless you polish it to within an inch of its life and then it takes on a creepy frictionless feel that I don't like at all... and brass is just too soft and develops too much drag for my taste with these thin Argentine top strings. But I like both the Evo and good quality 18% Nickel wire. They're a little different but not "bad different" ... more like pretty twin sisters... very similar but slightly different and each has her own appeal. ;-)

shega

Bob-

which gauge of EVO wire have you been using?

Bob Holo

I believe they called it Jumbo... but I thought of it more as a regular fretwire that was a bit higher. But don't take that description to be gospel if you're thinking of ordering some. I believe they've expanded their offerings. A friend who has been using it for a while told me I needed to make sure to look carefully before ordering in the future as "things had changed a little". I'm not sure what that means, except that the popularity of the wire seems to have caused them to expand the selection.

It's good wire, but I'm kind of torn... I have tried many and I fell in love fairly hard with Stewmac 149 which is an 18% nickel alloy. Switching away from it is not easy. If the EU hadn't come up with reduced nickel standards for fretwire on new instruments shipped into Europe, I probably wouldn't have... not because Evo isn't great... it's just that SM149 is great wire and I have an aversion to making changes unless there is a real acoustic benefit. Cheap fretwire is a pox on humanity and a lot of it tends to have low nickel content - but a good nickel copper fretwire is a wonderful thing. As for a difference... tough to say. I think if GJ strings were harder, there might be more of a difference. But whether a fret is Vicker 220-ish or Vicker 250... I mean GJ strings are silver over copper. I don't know how hard the alloys used in the strings are, because I'm guessing they're not pure copper or silver, but silver and copper are both well under a hundred. Steel is in the 200+ range so I guess I can see how the unwound strings can wear frets or may have a different tone when fretted on a material that is either harder or softer, but I've not noticed a tonal difference. Also, steel can go up over 1,000 and up over 2,000 when you start getting into carbides - so I'm not really even sure where the extra wear resistance is coming from unless unwound string steel is between the range of the two fretwires in which case it would wear something softer than it but not wear something harder than it if you exclude the effect of impurities and contaminants. So, as for why the Evo stands up to Stainless wire... it's a bit of a mystery to me as I'm not very knowledgeable in metallurgy but I know that stainless is harder than either of the two fretwires. If the Evo alloy has superior self-lubrication or a lower coefficient of friction... that might explain it... ?? If we have any metallurgists on the board maybe one of them can tell us the difference between a Copper-Nickel alloy and a Selenium-Titanium-Iron-Copper alloy (which is what I think the Evo is... don't quote me on that as I researched that a few years ago and memory is fleeting)

Fun stuff though. It's a good thing when a person has multiple options and they're both good. ;-)

Al Watsky

BH
I think the idea of EVO self lubricating might have some traction.
Thats the feel it has under the string.
It by consensus seems to brighten things a "bit".
I've heard of different metals gauling , its an effect of the materials binding , sort of sticking together.
Aluminum and brass will gaul .
I notice that the feel of the EVO under a set of Argentine's is different than the feel of the wire under a set of D'Add 10's. Theres something going on with the alloy interaction .
It may be that the EVO alloy for some reason resists gauling and for that reason wears more slowly.
I've also been a big fan of SM wire, the 149 is real good. I can wear a set of SM frets pretty quickly.
The EVO not nearly as quickly.
The EVO is harder to work, its brittle, generally less malleable and is more difficult to form into a tight radius, but it polishes nicely and I find that it "works" well in general.
I level it with diamond coated plates. The fret ends are more resistant to my older double cut metal files and I've been using a rather more corse file for the roughing in and shorter diamond coated plates for the final work on the ends and thats been working nicely.
The EVO is a bit more work. Its an upgrade.