Guitar Fret Sizes Explained: Types, Charts, and What Each One Feels Like

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The Winning Guide to Guitar Frets: Fret Materials, Sizes, Crowning, and When to Refret

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Frets are the metal strips embedded across the guitar fretboard that allow the guitarist to produce specific pitches by pressing strings against them. They are among the most frequently contacted components on a guitar and consequently the ones that wear most consistently with use.

Understanding fret materials, sizes, and maintenance allows guitarists to maintain their instruments optimally and make informed decisions about fretwork when needed.

Fret Wire Materials

Nickel silver — despite its name, an alloy of nickel, copper, and zinc with no actual silver — is the traditional and most common fret wire material. It has a warm, slightly vintage feeling under the fingers and good durability for most playing applications. The limitation is that nickel silver frets wear measurably with sustained use — players who practice extensively will need fret leveling and eventual refretting on nickel silver frets within five to fifteen years depending on playing intensity and string gauge.

Stainless steel fret wire is significantly harder than nickel silver and lasts dramatically longer — potentially the lifetime of the instrument under normal playing conditions. The trade-off is a different tactile feel — slightly cooler and more metallic under the fingers — and more difficult installation and finishing that makes stainless steel refretting more expensive at a qualified technician. Stainless steel frets are the preference for players who perform extensively and want to minimize fret maintenance.

Gold EVO — a brass-based alloy developed by Dunlop — occupies a middle ground: harder than nickel silver with extended life, softer than stainless steel with easier installation, and with a gold-tinted visual character that suits certain vintage aesthetic applications.

Fret Sizes: Width and Height

Fret wire is manufactured in various cross-sectional dimensions described by width and height measurements. Different manufacturers use different naming conventions — "jumbo," "medium jumbo," and "vintage" describe size families rather than specific measurements — but the physical dimensions follow consistent patterns.

Wider frets cover more of the fretboard and provide a larger surface for the string to contact when fretted. This can simplify string bending — the string has more material to slide across — and produces a slightly brighter attack from the larger contact area.

Taller frets — high crown — require less finger pressure to fret cleanly because the elevated crown reduces the distance between the string and the fret surface. Tall frets can also make bending easier by reducing the string-to-fret contact length. Their disadvantage is that intonation is more sensitive to fretting pressure — pressing too hard on a tall fret raises the pitch of the fretted note by pulling the string sharp as it stretches across the elevated crown.

Low profile frets — commonly called "vintage" in reference to the smaller frets on pre-1970s guitars — require more precise fretting technique because less fret height is available. They suit players with established technique who prefer a more direct connection to the fretboard.

 

 

Guitar Fret Sizes Explained Simply — What the Numbers Actually Mean

Fret size refers to the height and width of the fret wire pressed into the fretboard. The two measurements are called crown width and crown height. Wider and taller frets — jumbo and medium jumbo — require less finger pressure to fret a note cleanly because the string contacts the fret before it contacts the wood. Shorter vintage frets give a closer connection to the fretboard that some players prefer for rhythm work.

Fret Wear: Symptoms and Solutions

Fret wear appears as flat spots on the crown of individual frets — typically most pronounced at the first through fifth fret positions where the most frequently played chords and notes concentrate the most physical contact. Worn frets cause intonation problems — the string contacts the flat surface rather than a consistent crowned peak, making the fretted pitch inconsistent — and can cause buzzing as the string contacts a worn fret at an incorrect height relative to adjacent frets.

Fret leveling — the process of filing all frets to a common height and recrowning them to restore their curved profile — addresses wear without removing the frets. This procedure is appropriate when the frets have adequate remaining height after leveling — typically when no individual fret is below approximately half its original height. The cost at a qualified technician is typically $80 to $150.

Refretting — removing all existing fret wire and installing a complete new set — is required when the frets are too worn for leveling to restore adequate height or when the player wants to change fret wire material or size. Refretting costs typically $200 to $500 at a qualified technician depending on the instrument, the fret wire specified, and the market.

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