Official Luthiers Forum!

I believe the 18% is harder and I've always used SM's so far
What is 12% used for?

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

If you have enough of it it's used to hold down your trash can until the truck comes....

18% if NS is your bag is what you want not 12%. We inherited a LOT of the lower percentage NS stuff and pitched it, it's awful and at least the stuff that we had could be tied in knots by hand with little effort.

What's it suitable for - beats me, seems way too soft to last well. It's easy enough to spring a fret when hammering (tapping....) with 18% so the 12% must just dent, twist, do what ever it wants....

I was just looking at Jescar's site, Jescar is my favorite, and they are now selling fret wire in one guitar sets already precut which means that hobby builders or anyone not wishing to break the bank buying fret wire can purchase small, inexpensive quantities. I think that you, Colin want more of a stock pile but for other OLFers this link may be useful:

https://www.jescar.com/?product_cat=nickel-silver

We only use Jescar and buy it by the pound and a typical order for us is thousands....

I'm looking for 30%. Let me know if you find it.
Hardness is not so much a function of the nickel content, but how much annealing the metal has undergone.
Some of the older fretwire (which supposedly is 30% nickel), is very easily bent.
I see the 12% mostly on classical guitars.....and cheap imports.

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John

Makes me think one could go about annealing their own wire somehow.

But if that's true why are you looking for 30% wire?

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Annealing softens fretwire. The only way to make a given alloy of fretwire harder is through work-hardening (cold rolling, hammering). I don't know what all goes into the selection of fretwire alloys. (Metal prices? Die wear? Ease of forming?) Jescar makes the nicest fretwire I've used. I don't think they're cutting any corners. This site suggests that other alloy ingredients are as important to obtainable hardness as is nickel content: http://www.nealloys.com/cupro_nickel.php (Notice Rockwell B values) (Fret wear may not correlate perfectly with fret hardness.)

You can. Heat it up and quench it. The bar fret wire that Martin used started out round, and was rolled flat. The wire must be annealed between passes through the roller. But that was not my point.



Durability. Even when soft and easily bent, the older fretwire lasts forever. I have seen many prewar guitars with the original frets. With the modern fretwire, I have had to replace frets after 8 months of daily use. If this superior durability is not because of the nickel content, I am ready for the real answer.

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John