Do Fender use soft fretwire...?

rico

...or is it just me? See pic below showing some fret wear on the second fret. The guitar is about seven months old and bought it new. Average fret wear or does this seem excessive?

I do play it very regularly but always wipe the strings down after a long session and change strings regularly - every three weeks or so but maybe more often if i'm gigging.

WezV

What is the country of origin?

rico

WezV said:

What is the country of origin?

Good old USA

HAL9000

Nickel or steel strings?

ICBM

HAL9000 said:

Nickel or steel strings?

Plain strings are always steel .

That looks about normal for a fairly heavily played guitar over that time period. Fret wear always looks worse than it actually is.

guitarfishbay

Looks normal to me if you play it a lot.

cj73

Maybe learn another scale than Em pentatonic? 

rico

cj73 said:

Maybe learn another scale than Em pentatonic? 

I knew someone would say that! It's mainly from chording. 

cj73

Couldn't help myself.

I know what you mean though.  Singer / Rhythm Guitarist in our band has played the same Ibanez ES type for c30 years and has hands that a joiner would be afraid to shake.... you should see the indentations in his fretboard, never mind the frets.

Full Disclosure:  You can easily tell which keys I play in by looking at my guitars necks...Em features heavily

MattFGBI

What is this "key" of which you speak? 

ICBM

I once worked on an original early 1970s one-owner-from-new Gibson acoustic which was literally down to the wood in the G, C and D major positions, and had no wear anywhere else at all.



Country player .

Gassage

MattFGBI said:

What is this "key" of which you speak? 

D minor, the saddest of all keys.

Nick

Varies so much from player to player. Once saw a Les Paul come back after six months with what looked like the most excessive fret wear near the nut. I asked the chap whether this happened to all of his guitars, and he confirmed that it did!

rico

I just looked at some pics of a LP I sold earlier in the year and I had that about two years and the fret wear was noticeably less than this guitar, and I bought that one second hand. 

crunchman

rico said:

I just looked at some pics of a LP I sold earlier in the year and I had that about two years and the fret wear was noticeably less than this guitar, and I bought that one second hand. 

You may play differently with a different neck profile and fingerboard radius.

Fender frets tend to be narrower as well, so may wear more quickly as a result.

mrkb

cj73 said:

Maybe learn another scale than Em pentatonic? 

Yes, try G Major Pentatonic

Sassafras

That doesn't really look that bad to me. If you're playing every day for an hour or so, I'd expect that amount of wear.

rico

Sassafras said:

That doesn't really look that bad to me. If you're playing every day for an hour or so, I'd expect that amount of wear.

The photo doesn't really represent it properly but I definitely think these frets are softer that other guitars I have owned. 

richardhomer

mrkb said:

cj73 said:

Maybe learn another scale than Em pentatonic? 

Yes, try G Major Pentatonic

At last, we’ve established the root of the problem....

57Deluxe

Soft Bretwire...