Questions About Frets

[GarrettS]

What is Tang width? (Obviously this is not referring to the Kool=aid man.)

Can the lower frets be wider, but be tapered down to transition to tall, narrow frets 17-14? Can the last 4 frets be tapered down even more narrowly? I hardly get up past fret 19. Very narrow frets there should help playability and intonation and since I hardly make it up that high, I don't have as much worry for fret wear there. 

I play my guitars very hard with lots of vibrato and I practice a lot, so I need a hard fretwire. Should I go for EVO? SS? Or a blend?

Thank you.

[curtisa]

8 hours ago, GarrettS said:

What is Tang width?

The width of the beam section of the fret wire that gets embedded into the fretboard (dimension 'C' below):

8 hours ago, GarrettS said:

Can the lower frets be wider, but be tapered down to transition to tall, narrow frets 17-14?

Yes, but you're looking at a partial refret job to do it. Effectively you're asking for the upper frets to be replaced with narrower fret wire with similar crown height to the existing frets (dimension 'B' in the above diagram becomes smaller while dimension 'A' remains the same).

 

8 hours ago, GarrettS said:

Should I go for EVO? SS? Or a blend?

Is there such a thing as an Evo/stainless blend?

I've not used Evo gold fretwire myself, but my understanding is that on a hardness scale it sits somewhere between stainless steel and standard 18% nickel silver fret wire. That should make it a bit easier on the tools and hopefully a bit cheaper to have installed.

Stainless is pretty unforgiving stuff and a tech will likely charge more for installing it, but it's also pretty much bullet-proof in terms of wear from playing.

[Bizman62]

The link didn't open, here's an image from wdmusic.co.uk:

[GarrettS]

On 3/14/2021 at 10:09 PM, curtisa said:

Is there such a thing as an Evo/stainless blend?

Sorry. What I meant was having some frets SS and others EVO. 

I do not like the sound of SS frets as much Nickel, and the flame maple amplifies the harshness. I heard of cryogenic Nickel/Steel but couldn't find it anywhere. I love nickel steel frets but I bend a lot and that wears them down fast.