If you want to get into working on your own guitars, one of the big milestones you can shoot for is to be able to do your own refret. This process costs about $150-$200 to have done, so you can think of this skill as a huge money saver. And that will be enough to justify spending $200 on tools over the next 6 months. Or $900, if you shop at StewMac.
But if you like medium-jumbo frets, as most players do, here’s a helpful shortcut – Fender sells precut, pre-bent medium jumbo frets. You can find them in some Guitar Centers and/or Sam Ash Stores, if you are very, very lucky. Mostly they carry about 5 packages and once they sell out you’ll never see them again. So you’ll be ordering online. Which is what I did.
Serious luthiers will scoff at the idea of precut pre-bent frets, but if you’re just starting out it’s a fantastic idea. Once you get used to working with them, you’ll have a better idea on how you want to cut and bend your own frets down the road. In the meantime, it’s a great shortcut. The frets are cut wide enough for your highest fret. The only downside is that on the first few frets you might have to use your fret cutters twice to cut the end, because they might not cut deep enough. But that’s not a huge deal.
I’ve put these frets into two different strats, a Squier Jagmaster, an Epiphone Les Paul, and a Squier Strat II, and had great luck with them. They’re not the correct fret for a Les Paul, but it was an experiment guitar and they worked out fine. I highly recommend these frets for anyone getting started.
Affiliated Amazon Link below. I only link to stuff that I’ve personally used and that I personally like. The stuff I don’t like never makes the website. I bought through this seller and the frets came right on time and were exactly what they were supposed to be.
Amazon Link – Fender Standard Guitar Fretwire
