Boogie Bill
New member
Re: Man! I love fretless wonders! (small, narrow frets)
The "Fretless Wonder" refers to the late 50's Les Paul Customs and the Custom Reissues of the late 60's until the mid-70s. Sorry I don't remember when they changed the Customs over to the wider flat frets. I owned a 1975 LP with the wide flats and the Customs of the day definitely had a smaller fret, very narrow and very little height..indeed a very tiny fret by today's standard, and even smaller than the frets on a vintage Fenders. As someone stated, they are perfect for jazz players who like heavier strings. A vintage Custom with heavy flatwounds can produce tone to rival any jazz box. That's what those guitars were designed for.
Gibson used the flat wide frets on their other models, and they are easier to bend strings on. And many of those older Customs have been re-fretted with bigger frets by rock players. So it's not unusual to find an older Reissue Custom with the larger frets.
Neither the Fretless Wonder frets or the wide-flats of the 70's are favories of mine, first because I am a bender. Second, the wider fret is easier to bend on, but if they are not leveled and crowned correctly, the guitar will suffer from exasperating intonation problems. I like the current frets Gison uses and the necks on my G&Ls use a similar 12" radius and medium-jumbo frets.
Once you've played them both, you'll never confuse the tiny Fretless Wonder frets with the Gibson wide-flats.
Bill
The "Fretless Wonder" refers to the late 50's Les Paul Customs and the Custom Reissues of the late 60's until the mid-70s. Sorry I don't remember when they changed the Customs over to the wider flat frets. I owned a 1975 LP with the wide flats and the Customs of the day definitely had a smaller fret, very narrow and very little height..indeed a very tiny fret by today's standard, and even smaller than the frets on a vintage Fenders. As someone stated, they are perfect for jazz players who like heavier strings. A vintage Custom with heavy flatwounds can produce tone to rival any jazz box. That's what those guitars were designed for.
Gibson used the flat wide frets on their other models, and they are easier to bend strings on. And many of those older Customs have been re-fretted with bigger frets by rock players. So it's not unusual to find an older Reissue Custom with the larger frets.
Neither the Fretless Wonder frets or the wide-flats of the 70's are favories of mine, first because I am a bender. Second, the wider fret is easier to bend on, but if they are not leveled and crowned correctly, the guitar will suffer from exasperating intonation problems. I like the current frets Gison uses and the necks on my G&Ls use a similar 12" radius and medium-jumbo frets.
Once you've played them both, you'll never confuse the tiny Fretless Wonder frets with the Gibson wide-flats.
Bill
