do your frets screw up while tapping?

on one of my guitars my frets are screwed up cause of tapping. there are little "trenches" or ditches, cuts or whatever on the frets. im scared of tapping on my other guitar for fear of screwing up their frets.

if you tap, is there something wrong with your frets?

I tap and don't have that happening.

How old is the guitar? Are you sure it's not just normal fret wear that happens over time and you just noticed it?

i got the other guitar in september and i noticed it a while back, just never talked about it.

on march 9th i got a new guitar and i'm scared of the same thing happening to this guitar.

im sure its not fret wear, its like tiny little slits, as if somebody got a knife and slashed the frets.

maybe its just cheap frets? or maybe not cause im bending on the new guitar and i'm noticing wear on the areas i bend alot.

Sounds kinda weird to me. Do you have any pics?

This is my Gibson after many years of tapping.



I get indentations like the ones circled but they're not really noticable and actually make the guitar easier to play cause the frets are nicely worn in.

they're liike that but alot sharper, and not as wide. sorry i have a cheap camera it might not show

What kind of guitar is it, and how long did it take for it to get like that?

I have the same thing on my Fullerton strat copy. I would also like to know the cause of it. Its deep enough that if you bend over it, it sounds like your picking the string. Sharp indent like a razor blade slit it.

Well, about the only thing it can be is a fault in the fret material itself.
It's obviously not the strings, or the wood, or your fingers that are at fault.
That just leaves the frets and what kind of material they were made from.
If these are copies, then the manufacturer has probably cut corners in the costs of materials. That's why copies are less expensive than the real thing.
You basically get what you pay for. The guitar manufacturer is probably buying the fretwire from a bulk, overseas supplier who's using filler material in the pure metal so he can make more frets for less money.

Originally Posted by: elklanderccI have the same thing on my Fullerton strat copy. I would also like to know the cause of it. Its deep enough that if you bend over it, it sounds like your picking the string. Sharp indent like a razor blade slit it.

mine's a strat copy too.. sorta... its "by fender" but its made in china so yea whatever. maybe what schmange said is true.

schmange on your guitars do your frets even wear when you bend or tap alot?

Not until after the guitars are decades old. Even then, it's pretty much the same as the pic above.



The first pic was a 1975 Gibson L6S I bought used and this is a 1985 Roland GR808 I bought brand new...so we're talking at least 20 years of heavy play on each guitar.

i once had some frets that had slits in like they were cut by a razor instead of dented, but that came from accidently hitting the strings into the fret with a hammer (i was 14 :rolleyes: ) but as for the dents, i'd say its just wear. i'm a serious tapping fiend and its never happened to any of mine :)

could it be that the frets have cracked?

Originally Posted by: markc2005could it be that the frets have cracked?

Not very likely. But sometimes when frets are made a few get cut against the grain. Just like wood, metal has a molecular grain to it. Unlike wood though, the grain in metal is much more compact and it doesn't run the same direction throughout the entire sheet of metal. As the metal is forged and it cools the grain is more of a swirl. And sometimes the fret wire is cut so the grain is runnin perfectly across the fret (the way the strings would) rather then along the fret (parallel to) it can cause chunks of fret wire to get pulled out whe you bend or something in that specific spot. Especially if they weren't properly crownd when they were installed. I've had it happen to my American made Stratocaster. I simply took my crowning file and recrowned my frets. I don't suggest that you do that, it's a pretty hard project to tackle and you could potentially ruin the fretboard. But I do suggest that you take it to a tech and have them crown your frets for you. Or, you can just play it like it is and it will eventually go away as the metal continues to wear. I can reassure you that it has nothing to do with tapping.

well the strat copy guitar's not even a year old. in fact its only 6 months old and it has cuts, sharp cuts on the 20th and 21st frets under e, b, and g strings.

I know my guitar didn't come with the nick, I was playing it one day after several months of playing on it when I did a bend and heard something hitting the string and making it ring. Turned out to be the nick. (sp on nick?)

any insrument will develope fretware. especially when we do a lot of bending, tapping, whatever. I belive that this type of ware can be kept to a minimum
by using the least amount of pressure to get the desired result. I've see manny an old guitar,with thin frets, that show large amounts of such wear even down to the neck itself (between the frets). I think that if we play we pay, technique is so imporatnt this includes pressure as well. I allways have a guitar to use for pratice. I save my nicer instruments for performing. JIM :)

Originally Posted by: rightturnonlyany insrument will develope fretware. especially when we do a lot of bending, tapping, whatever. I belive that this type of ware can be kept to a minimum
by using the least amount of pressure to get the desired result. I've see manny an old guitar,with thin frets, that show large amounts of such wear even down to the neck itself (between the frets). I think that if we play we pay, technique is so imporatnt this includes pressure as well. I allways have a guitar to use for pratice. I save my nicer instruments for performing. JIM :)

so what you're saying is eventually frets will wear if you bend and frets will cut if you tap?

if thats it then that sucks. i have scratchless spoons and my frets have cuts in them. did the spoon factory get their metal shipments mixed with the guitar factory?

Originally Posted by: rightturnonlyany insrument will develope fretware. especially when we do a lot of bending, tapping, whatever. I belive that this type of ware can be kept to a minimum
by using the least amount of pressure to get the desired result. I've see manny an old guitar,with thin frets, that show large amounts of such wear even down to the neck itself (between the frets). I think that if we play we pay, technique is so imporatnt this includes pressure as well. I allways have a guitar to use for pratice. I save my nicer instruments for performing. JIM :)

What were talkiong about isn't really wear, its like a direct cut that apperered during play, it wasn't factory handling.

Originally Posted by: elklanderccI know my guitar didn't come with the nick, I was playing it one day after several months of playing on it when I did a bend and heard something hitting the string and making it ring. Turned out to be the nick. (sp on nick?)

What I was saying early wasn't that the guitar came with the nick. Rather, the frets were cut in a way that makes it a lot more likely that a chunk of the fretwire will pull away. In the fasion that it did for elklandercc. It's likely that since your Strat was only a few months old at the time that that's what caused it... For elk and for pure.

Originally Posted by: pureso what you're saying is eventually frets will wear if you bend and frets will cut if you tap?

if thats it then that sucks. i have scratchless spoons and my frets have cuts in them. did the spoon factory get their metal shipments mixed with the guitar factory?

Yeah but we don't eat guitar strings with our spoons. My first guitar a ES335
had a fret that was pushed into the fret board too hard. I was able to take it back. Strings wear & we replace them. how often do we replace our frets.
Also I agree that some fret meaterial is better than others. I wonder how many kinds of fret wire there are? Hey companies make mistakes too, maybe they did mix up the spoon metal with the fret wire metal, one never knows. RTO