I just had Greg Hails at Aperio Guitar put stainless steel frets on my 10 year-old Fender Jazzmaster, and I can neither stop playing this guitar, nor say enough great things about Greg, his skill, and his business.
This was not my first set of stainless steel frets on this guitar--I had a set put on six years ago by a local luthier--but I was not happy with the inconsistent way it all came out, and that fellow soon went out of business. And try to get a local guitar shop to work on stainless steel frets--either they won't touch it, or they complain about the wear-and-tear on their tools.
After I tried to fix things myself and totally botched it, I decided to look online for a specialist and came across the Aperio Guitar website. I sent an email describing my problem, and got a reply from Greg within hours--in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, when getting a return email can often take several days.
Greg instilled the confidence in me to go ahead and send my neck to him for a new fret job. His web site tells you exactly how to get guitar-neck sized Priority Shipping mailing tubes from the US Postal Service delivered free to your home. The shipping from Boston to Georgia was a paltry $12.55 each way.
A few days after shipping I received emails from both Greg and his wife Bette, with a series of pictures of my guitar neck being unpacked, showing that it had arrived unscathed. The following week I received an email from Greg that my guitar was up next, and we had a phone conversation about which fret wire to use. I told him I was not happy with the frets that were on there, which he told me were 6100s. I wanted a more crisp and clean jangly sound, while still able to do some string bending, and low enough so that I could play thirds sliding my fingers up and down the neck without getting snagged by the frets before I arrived at the desired location. After discussing the various options, he recommended 6105s. I did a little research online and watched a couple of YouTube videos of Strats and Teles with new 6105 frets, and I told Greg I concurred with his recommendation.
A couple of days later I got an email from Greg with lots of close ups of the neck with the new frets. Greg also put on a new Graphtec nut, cut the slots for 10-46 gauge strings (my choice), and mounted the neck on a Strat body to test it all out. He also adjusted the the truss rod.
A few days later the neck with its bright new shiny and polished frets was back home and on my Jazzmaster. All I can say is that the fretwork is flawless and the guitar plays like a new guitar. The thinner, lower frets were the perfect choice for me, and they are so level that I was able to move the action down quite low without sacrificing any clean tone from bottoming out the strings, or getting that sitar-like buzz which means a fret somewhere down the neck is slightly higher that the one you are playing. This evenness is quite an accomplishment on stainless steel, which is hard to work with in both senses of the word.
You don't always see this attention to detail on stainless steel fret conversions where many of your local luthiers are more concerned about wear-and-tear on their tools and are loathe to do more work than necessary. Not Greg. I don't know how he does it, but he does it--and for less money than less experienced luthiers want to charge. And all this was done during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, when so many other businesses had ground to a total halt.
If you are thinking about stainless steel frets (of which I am a big fan) my advice to you is to not waste your time and money with someone who will either balk at working with stainless steel or do it begrudgingly and thus less completely. Send your neck or guitar to Greg at Aperio Guitar--a specialist who does this day in and day out, has it all down to a science, and who exudes professionalism from top to bottom. You won't be disappointed. read more
