Jescar EVO Gold & Fret Wear

[DeathAngel]

I’ve had Jescar EVO Gold frets on my 4-string bass for 1 year now and I haven’t noticed any signs of fret wear.

I play this bass 3 hours a week on average, I slap quite a lot and bend. As to strings, I use D’Addario nickel roundwounds EXL160 [50-70-85-105], standard tuning.

As of now, these frets seem to be eternal. Does anyone have experience with them?

 

[Turnaround]

The topic came up in a recent conversation I had with a luthier who builds high-end instruments. He uses EVO frets exclusively and his take is that they are closer to Stainless Steel than standards Nickel Silver in terms of hardness but easier to work than stainless.

I think they look great too.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

The topic came up in a recent conversation I had with a luthier who builds high-end instruments. He uses EVO frets exclusively and his take is that they are closer to Stainless Steel than standards Nickel Silver in terms of hardness but easier to work than stainless.

I think they look great too.

That's my experience with it too. I use stainless on all my basses these days, but my buddy Keith Horne (whose shop is across the hall) uses the EVO wire on some of his guitars. It's very nice wire to work with, and it looks beautiful on dark, warm colored instruments.

I consider stainless fretwire to have about 3 times the working life of Nickel-Silver wire. The EVO wire is maybe 2 times the life of NS. If it takes you 20 years to wear grooves in NS frets, then EVO will go 40 years and stainless will go 60 years.

No fret wire is really eternal. Wear depends on how hard you play and how many hours you play. One of my customers recently brought his bass back to me for a fret dressing. He had worn light grooves in the stainless frets in about 7 years. With flatwounds! But he plays 6-8 hours a day, every day. He's a serious pro bassist.

 

[Turnaround]

But he plays 6-8 hours a day, every day. He's a serious pro bassist.

That's not play, that's work!

 

[RSBBass]

Back in the day I played 8 hours a day six days a week. Still use the chops I built up then. Oh and my bass still has the original frets.