Choosing the right fret wire for your guitar can be confusing and even overwhelming. I created this guide to help you choose the best frets for your next guitar-building or re-fret project.
In this ultimate luthier’s guide to fret wire, I’ll be sharing my personal observations and some lessons I learned building my custom guitars over the past 20+ years.
We will take an in-depth look at the guitar fret materials, hardness, and sizes, as well as the effects and importance of each detail to make the process of selecting the perfect fret wire for your next guitar a simple process you can feel confident about.
Why Is Fret Wire So Important?
There are so many important parts to think about when designing or building a guitar, but the type and size of frets (and the quality of the fretwork) are some of the most important.
While the guitar bracing or tone-woods might have a greater influence on the guitar’s voice, the frets are uniquely important because they are the point of interaction for the player’s fingers and hands.
They are an intimate and critical component that must feel comfortable and natural for the rest of the guitar and its woods, finishes, and voice to be fully appreciated.
The wrong fret material or size, or simply poor fretwork in general, can result in an otherwise wonderful guitar never becoming the true favorite instrument it could have been.
If you’re in need of some instruction on the techniques and approach to fretwork, you can also check out our two-part Online Luthier Courses, “Fretwork Mastery Part 1” and “Fretwork Mastery Part 2”—more on that later in this article.
What Is The Best Fret Wire?
Unfortunately, it isn’t as easy as just saying this one material or size of fretting wire is “The Best Fret Wire” and having that one specific fret wire work great for all guitars and all players.
The good news is that when you understand a few key aspects of what makes a specific guitar fret wire work in different situations, and how they affect the guitar’s feel and tone, it becomes much easier to choose the perfect frets for each guitar you build or re-fret.
Choosing The Perfect Guitar Fret Wire
Choosing the perfect wire is simple, once you know what to look for and how the choice of material and size will affect the guitar. Let’s start by making sure we understand the basic parts of the wire and the terms that go along with them.
- Fret Crown—The top of the fret wire has a rounded top and a flat bottom. This portion sits on top of the fingerboard and has two basic metrics that we will be discussing: Crown Height and Crown Width.
- Fret Tang—The tang is the portion of the fret wire inserted into the fret slots that are cut into the guitar fretboard or fingerboard. The width of the tang should fit snugly into the fret slot and not easily be pulled out. We cover the proper fitting and adjusting of the fret tangs in great detail in the Fretwork Mastery Part 1 course.
- Fret Barbs—The barbs are on the fret tang’s sides and help to hold the fret in place, once it is driven into the fret slot.
Now that we have the terms and design of the fret wire clear, let’s move on to the two main aspects I look at when choosing each guitar’s frets.
Sizes Of Fret Wire
When I first started building guitars, I was worried about the wearing-out of the nickel silver frets I was using and the eventual need for the guitar to be re-fretted. Because of that, my first handful of guitars had jumbo frets. My thinking was that if I used big, massive frets, then there would be more material there, and it would last longer (could handle more fret leveling before needing to be replaced).
I was also aware that the larger frets’ additional mass adds more sustain to the fretted notes and even makes string bending a bit more comfortable.
Sounds great, BUT…I realized that when the guitar frets are that big on an acoustic steel string or acoustic archtop guitar, it just doesn’t feel as comfortable and isn’t what many players of those guitars are used to (remember, this is all personal preference).
I later started shifting my attention to making playability and comfort the main focus and switched to a medium fret wire. For me, that middle ground (medium-sized fret wire) ended up being the sweet spot of balancing comfort, string bending, sustain, and durability. (I still was a little worried about durability, though, I have to admit, and we’ll talk about what I experimented with in the following section on fret wire materials.)
Right now, let’s look closer at the main factors involved when choosing the perfect guitar fret size.
When we speak of “fret size,” we usually refer to the crown width and crown height.
Here are a few of my observations about each fret wire size listed by crown width and height. (The impact of the fret wire size on tone and other aspects of the guitar that we will be talking about in the following sections are very subtle, and keep in mind that it is largely personal preference-based.)
Fret Crown Width
- Narrow Frets (usually between .053″ and .080″)—Mostly used for pre-WWII guitars, ukuleles, banjoes, mandolins, and other instruments like that. It’s not very common on guitars these days.
- Medium Frets (usually between .080″ and .095″)—This medium-sized wire is the sweet spot, in my opinion, giving a comfortable feel and enough mass for nice sustain and even some decent string bending at the larger end of this medium fret width category. I feel like the intonation may be a bit more accurate with a medium fret than the wide or jumbo size, which I’ll talk more about shortly.
- Wide Frets (usually between .100″ and .110″)—If you are a heavy metal shredder or rock player, you most likely love these frets. It has lots of sustain and is great for bending and tapping. These wide or jumbo frets are often used for electric guitars and basses. If a good job of fret crowing is done, then the intonation when new should be just the same as a medium fret, but as the wider fret wears and flattens the rounded crown shape, it can lead to more noticeable intonation problems as the string point of contact gets subtly moved closer to the saddle making the string a tiny bit sharp. It’s subtle, but it does happen, so it’s good to be aware of.
Fret Crown Height
- Low Frets (usually .036″ or lower)—These low frets are generally used only in fret replacement situations where you need to match the existing frets that have already been worn and re-leveled.
- Medium-Height Frets (usually between .039″ – .045″ tall)—The medium-height frets come in as the sweet spot for me again.
They offer a comfortable middle ground, giving enough material for a few leveling jobs and not so much height that your fingers don’t touch the fingerboard when fretting the note. - Tall Frets (usually .045″ and up)—These frets are taller and, as such, will give you the most material for future fret leveling and crowning.Some people like a taller fret because they feel it takes less pressure to make a clear note since their fingers are not touching the fingerboard as much.
Other people don’t like them because if you aren’t used to using them, you can press too much and make the string sharp, especially with lighter-gauge strings.
- Low Frets (usually .036″ or lower)—These low frets are generally used only in fret replacement situations where you need to match the existing frets that have already been worn and re-leveled.
- Medium-Height Frets (usually between .039″ – .045″ tall)—The medium-height frets come in as the sweet spot for me again, as they offer a comfortable middle ground, giving enough material for a few leveling jobs and not so much height that your fingers don’t touch the fingerboard when fretting the note.
- Tall Frets (usually .045″ and up)—These frets are taller and, as such, will give you the most material for future fret leveling and crowning.
Some people like a taller fret because they feel it takes less pressure to make a clear note since their fingers are not touching the fingerboard as much.
Other people don’t like them because if you aren’t used to using them, you can press too much and make the string sharp, especially with lighter-gauge strings.
Fret Wire Materials
Around the time I was discovering that a medium fret size could give my guitars a nice balance of fret mass AND playing comfort, a new craze started spreading through the guitar-making community: Stainless Steel Frets.
Logically, it made good sense to me to use a harder fret material, so I jumped on the bandwagon and did quite a few guitars in stainless frets. Some of the re-fret jobs I did were changed from 18% nickel wire to stainless steel, so I was able to carefully observe the subtle shift in tone and feel in those guitars, and I learned A LOT.
Nickel Silver
Hardness: HV5/200
This fret wire is actually a copper alloy with nickel added for the harness. Despite its name, it has no silver in it. The most common type is the 18% nickel, which I use most often for my guitars. Some classical guitar makers also use a softer version with only 12% nickel.
I have observed that the nickel silver fret wire has the warmest tone, and the string seems to grip onto it just a bit (compared to the following guitar fret wire materials). This is the most common type of guitar fret material.
Gold Fretwire
Hardness: HV5/250
If you are wondering what gold fret wire is, you’re not alone, as it’s the newest addition to our fret material options and is made from copper, tin, iron, and titanium (CuSn15Fe1Ti0.1). It has no nickel, perfect for people who have allergies or other concerns with nickel frets.
The tone and feel are best described as in between the 18% nickel silver and the stainless steel fret materials (not surprising since the hardness of the gold fret wire is right in the middle as well).
The gold color can be a really nice and unique touch on certain guitars like this one, and the extra hardness seems to be enough to extend the life of the frets without totally destroying your fretting tools as stainless does—more on that in the next section.I have used this wire the least of the three, but I am currently using it on several guitars, and so far, I love it. It seems to be that sweet spot again, a balance of workability and durability, and it looks great too.
Stainless Steel
(Hardness: HV5/250
This is the hardest fret wire on the list, and because of that extreme hardness, there are some pros and some cons. The pros are that they last virtually forever and they stay looking good too. I mentioned earlier that some of the guitars I installed this on were re-frets. I was able to play and observe the guitars with nickel silver frets and then do the same again after I installed the stainless steel frets. I heard and felt what were to me very noticeable differences.
First is the feel: the stainless was like walking on ice, so smooth and slippery, it just begs you to bend the strings (maybe too slippery). The thing that shocked me most was how much it changed the tone of the guitars. The stainless added a subtle yet noticeable brightness and, to me, was even a touch colder sounding than before.
The worst part of stainless steel frets is the way it totally destroys your tools (unless you use diamond fret crowning files). Just during the few years where I was doing a lot of stainless fret installation, I went through many different fret cutters, tang nippers, fret crowning files and a whole lot of elbow grease, too, as the fret jobs took much longer to do.
Cryowire
(Slightly harder than nickel)
I haven’t had the chance to try this new type of fret wire yet, but I wanted to include it in case it happens to be a perfect fit for your project. Stewmac has created a fret wire that is the traditional noble/silver material but that has been cryogenically frozen to increase hardness and wear resistance. That sounds like a great idea. I hope to try it soon, and when I do, I will update this article.
I feel like a broken record, but it bears repeating that much of what we are discussing is a personal preference. I’m sharing some of my opinions, so keep that in mind and stay open to what you might like as you experiment with these different fret sizes and materials.
What Fret Wire Do Your Favorite Guitars Have?
(Fender, Gibson, Taylor, etc.)
Now that you know a little more about the main factors that differentiate fret wire and that influence playing comfort and even guitar tone, there is still one more way to get some more helpful clues as to which fret wire will be the best for your guitar and your playing style. That is to check and see what frets are used by your favorite guitar companies and luthiers.
I love things like this because we can cross-reference the theoretical conclusions, such as considering fret material types and sizes with real-world experience as we play and listen to these guitars and let our senses and sensibilities weigh in on the choice we make in selecting the perfect fret wire for our next guitar-building project or guitar re-fret.
My Favorite Fret Wire
So now that you know a bit about my story and how I ended up trying so many different fret wires, I did eventually settle on my favorite wire size and materials that I use on almost all of my guitars. My good friend and client Roberto suggested I try a wire that he found to be the most comfortable of the guitars in his collection, so I did. I instantly fell in love with them.
The Jescar 43080 is a great balance of comfort, good sustain, maybe a little less string-bending comfort (but for my guitars, that isn’t a big concern), and a really nice feel and tone.
Plus, they fit perfectly into the fret slots produced by my favorite fret saw and they work great with my fret crowing file and other preferred fretwork tools too.
I have this wire in two materials, 18% nickel silver and EVO gold. Yes, I even use it on my archtops—I consider them acoustic guitars, so why not use acoustic frets?
The Stewmac Medium/Medium fret wire is the other wire I love to use and recommend.
Trusted Fret Wire Suppliers & Resources
There are many places to buy fret wire these days, but these are my go-to sources I have been using for many years (Note – this article is not sponsored). I prefer to buy in 1lb rolls, but you can also get precut frets or straight wire if that works better for your needs.
Still, if you don’t need that much, each of these luthier supply companies sells smaller quantities in different forms, so you should have no problem finding just the size, material and quantity you need to do your own experiments and make your own observations.
You can click the logos below to go directly to their Fret Wire Pages
I also found the fret wire sizing and brand chart at the following link very helpful for sorting out the different fret wire manufacturers and sizes, materials, etc. So you might want to check that out as well if you need more detailed specs and brand related info for re-frets and things like that:
Learn To Master Your Guitar Fretwork
Now that you have a deeper understanding of why choosing the perfect fret wire size and material is so important,
the next step is to learn the techniques and secrets of consistently creating flawless fretwork installation, leveling, and polishing so that every guitar you work on or build leaves your shop looking perfect and playing like a dream.
Below you can watch the trailer videos from two of our Luthier’s EDGE online training courses which make up a 2 Part Fretwork Mastery Series.
Fret Wire FAQ
What is fret wire?
Fret wire refers to the thin metal strips that are embedded into the fingerboard of a guitar or other fretted instrument. These strips create raised divisions on the fingerboard called frets, which mark specific points along the neck where the player can press down to produce different musical notes.
How long does fret wire last?
The lifespan of fret wire varies depending on factors such as playing style, frequency of use, and string gauge. Generally, fret wire can last several years to decades before needing replacement due to wear. Stainless steel frets tend to last longer than traditional nickel silver frets due to their hardness. Regular maintenance and proper care can extend the life of fret wire.
How much fret wire for one guitar?
The amount of fret wire needed for one guitar varies, but a standard estimate is around 5 to 6 feet of fret wire. Keep in mind that specific guitar fretboard designs, scale lengths, and fret wire sizes may slightly affect the exact amount needed.
What is the most common fret wire size?
The most common fret wire size is medium. Medium-sized fret wire strikes a balance between playability, comfort, sustain, and ease of bending. It’s a popular choice for a wide range of guitar styles and genres due to its versatility.
Unless you put the old strings back on after the re-fret, your impressions are not accurate.
Hi Jeff, that’s a great point, and technically you are correct, but in practice, I can still hear a difference that is more than just the change you hear with new strings. The harder fret wire sounds cold and brighter, and it feels very different when fretting notes as well. It’s all subjective, of course, but that’s experience anyway.
Excellent article! Much thanks for sharing your experience and insights. It’s very helpful that you provided the recommendation of the Jescar 43080 fret wire. With so many variations available, your recommendation makes it easier to choose a good brand and size of wire. Best Regards!
Thanks so much for taking time to comment and let me know, I am so happy to hear that it was helpful! 🙂