Fret Sizes and Materials

Last Updated on October 5th, 2022

One often-overlooked factor in the feel and playability of a guitar is the frets. There are various properties of the frets that can really change how the guitar plays. Let’s have a look at some of them, and what they mean for your guitar’s playability.

Size

Anatomy of a fret

The biggest difference is in the size of the frets. To understand how we talk about fret sizes, we first need to understand the anatomy of a fret. Frets are cut from fret wire, which comes on a roll.  The frets are tapped into pre-cut slots on the fingerboard. The part of the fret that goes into the slot is called the “tang,” and the part that sits on top of the fingerboard is called the “crown.” When we talk about fret sizes, we’re only talking about the crown.

The two dimensions that make a difference here, then, are the width and height. The height is the most prominently felt. The “fretless wonders” that Gibson made in the mid-60s used very low, flat wire. This gave an incredibly slinky feel when sliding up and down the fingerboard. On a modern metal-style guitar, however, you might find very tall frets – so tall in fact that your finger doesn’t touch the fingerboard at all when playing! So how would you choose between these two extremes?

Using low frets, as in those Gibsons, creates a very smooth feel as your hand moves around. However, it can make fretting a bit more difficult – you have to push the string right down to the wood to ensure there’s good contact between the string and the fret. This can, in turn, make bending harder, because you have to move your finger across the wood to make the bend. Using very high frets on the other hand can mean that the string can be properly fretted without your finger touching the fingerboard at all – giving an almost “scalloped” feel to the guitar. Obviously this allows you to have a very light touch, which in turn makes fast legato playing and two-handed tapping easier.

Fret Sizes

Now for fret width. This also affects the slinkiness of the feel when you’re sliding up and down. Wider frets will feel smoother, and narrow ones will feel more bumpy. Another factor to consider is wear. A wider fret will wear more slowly and go longer without needing re-crowning. But also, when a wider fret does wear, the crown becomes flatter and wider than on a narrow fret – and this might cause everything from subtle intonation issues to horribly buzzy notes or even “fretting out” – where the fret is worn down so low that the string misses it completely and sounds the next highest fret.

Given that there are pros and cons to wide or narrow, short or tall frets, how do we choose? The simple answer is that most guitars are fitted with frets that are somewhere in the middle in both directions. It’s now relatively rare to see guitars with narrow, short frets outside of the classical sphere. However, there’s a reasonably large sector of guitars that are meant for fast or heavy playing that use “jumbo” frets. It’s definitely worth trying these out to see if you like them first as, like so much in the world of guitars, in the final analysis it’s a purely personal preference.

Dimensions

Here is a table of some of the most common fret gauges. It’s by no means exhaustive but it does give you a good idea of some of the various sizes available. For example, most of the time when you hear about “jumbo” frets, people are talking about Dunlop 6100 wire. Measurements are in inches.

Supplier No. Crown width Crown height
Dunlop 6000 0.118 0.058
Dunlop 6110 0.115 0.05
Dunlop 6120 0.114 0.051
Jescar 57110 0.11 0.057
Jescar 55090 0.09 0.055
Jescar 55085 0.085 0.055
Jescar 50078 0.078 0.05
Jescar 51108 0.108 0.051
Dunlop 6100 0.11 0.055
Dunlop 6105 0.09 0.055
Stew-Mac 146 0.106 0.036
Stew-Mac 149 0.103 0.046
Stew-Mac 150 0.11 0.053
Stew-Mac 154 0.1 0.05
Jescar 47104 0.104 0.047
Jescar 45100 0.1 0.045
Dunlop 6105 0.09 0.055
Jescar 47095 0.095 0.047
Dunlop 6130 0.106 0.036
Dunlop 6140 0.106 0.039
Dunlop 6150 0.102 0.042
Dunlop 6170 0.099 0.043

Materials

The vast majority of frets are made of “nickel silver,” which, bizarrely enough, contains no silver. However, in recent years some manufacturers have started offering stainless steel frets or other similarly hard materials.

The main differences with stainless steel frets are that they are harder and smoother. This can give the feeling of “playing on glass,” and it means that fret wear is almost non-existent. If you have a heavy touch and you find yourself needing to get frets re-crowned or replaced regularly, then stainless steel might be the answer you’re looking for. One minor disadvantage is that some techs will charge more money for working with stainless steel frets, as the increased hardness requires harder tools.

There is also an argument that stainless steel frets change the tone. This is incredibly hard to quantify, as it’s impossible to quickly change the frets on a guitar so that the tone can be properly compared.

Here’s a video that might help you compare the sound – personally, I can’t hear any difference. UPDATE: The first 8 frets on this guitar are stainless steel, so what you are watching is two notes on regular fret wire and two on stainless steel, played on each string.

Next time you’re getting a refret, or buying a new axe, be aware of all your options when it comes to frets. It can completely change how you feel about the guitar!

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