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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on February 18, 2014 at 3:01pm

You can beat the radiused fret wire flat, but you may end up with variably high spots, and then have to do a lot of fret recrowning. Better to buy flat for a flat fretboard, or alternatively, learn how to radius a fretboard using sanding blocks and a handmade radiusing tool ( there are vids out there showing how). Gitty sells the gold Jescar Narrow / low EVO flat fret wire in 4 ft total length.

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Permalink Reply by ChickenboneJohn on February 18, 2014 at 7:58pm

I always use fretwire off the coil as I buy it in bulk direct from the manufacturer in the Netherlands, so it's naturally precurved.  In fact it's an advantage for installing it, because you are far less likely to get problems with the ends of the frets lifting. As long as the fret slot is good and narrow, its fine, just seat the fret ends first then gently tap or press in the centre of the fret. I've seen people who make flat fretboard instruments such as classical guitar  actually say that they pre-bend straight fretwire in order to keep the fret ends down.

As long as the slots are cut right it will be fine and you won't need to glue the wire in either. I'm not sure what the composition of that gold wire is, but I use regular hard nickel silver and don't have any issues with curved wire on a flat fretboard.

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Permalink Reply by darryl kernaghan on February 19, 2014 at 12:22pm

i,ve used curved wire 3 times 1 on a radius board 2 on flats,have had no problems,it actally grabbed hold better on the flat ones if that makes sence

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