Aristides Guitars

[pick_d]

Just curious:

1. How is the neck stability on Aristides? Since it's not made of wood, it should be almost rock-solid and you don't have to adjust truss rod during season or humidity changes, right?
2. What about refretting and overall durability? One day even stainless steel frets will wear down. Is it as (relatively) easy to do as in regular guitar and good local luthier would be able to take care of it? Or you'll have to send it back to Aristides or something?

 

[pott]

Necks don't budge. I never had to adjust mine.
Refretting should be no-different from other guitars. Richlite is fairly similar to wood, feel-wise, though I am no expert here.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

One day even stainless steel frets will wear down.

I have an old RG that I refretted with stainless steel frets over 10 years ago. After years of playing, notably being loaned out to gigging musicians as I worked on thier main instruments, completely abused, the frets are still in pristine condition. The nickel wound strings, and even steel, haven’t managed to erode the frets yet and I don’t see it happening anytime soon.

 

[diagrammatiks]

Just curious:

1. How is the neck stability on Aristides? Since it's not made of wood, it should be almost rock-solid and you don't have to adjust truss rod during season or humidity changes, right?
2. What about refretting and overall durability? One day even stainless steel frets will wear down. Is it as (relatively) easy to do as in regular guitar and good local luthier would be able to take care of it? Or you'll have to send it back to Aristides or something?

One day is very very far away.

 

[pick_d]

Necks don't budge. I never had to adjust mine.
Refretting should be no-different from other guitars. Richlite is fairly similar to wood, feel-wise, though I am no expert here.

I have an old RG that I refretted with stainless steel frets over 10 years ago. After years of playing, notably being loaned out to gigging musicians as I worked on thier main instruments, completely abused, the frets are still in pristine condition. The nickel wound strings, and even steel, haven’t managed to erode the frets yet and I don’t see it happening anytime soon.

One day is very very far away.

Gentlemen, thanks for your replies.
I ask because in my experience frets wear pretty fast when I bend. I have Jescar Evo gold frets for 3 months atm and I see noticeable wear or rather "attrition" which increases more and more. Time will tell how long frets will last, but from my perspective it doesn't look like far away (I expected more durability compared to nickel silver).

BTW, what kind of stainless steel frets last for 10 years in pristine condition? And by pristine you mean you didn't even had to polish them or something?

 

[diagrammatiks]

Gentlemen, thanks for your replies.
I ask because in my experience frets wear pretty fast when I bend. I have Jescar Evo gold frets for 3 months atm and I see noticeable wear or rather "attrition" which increases more and more. Time will tell how long frets will last, but from my perspective it doesn't look like far away (I expected more durability compared to nickel silver).

BTW, what kind of stainless steel frets last for 10 years in pristine condition? And by pristine you mean you didn't even had to polish them or something?

This Anderson is 13 years old. I’m the second owner. It survived a trip across the ocean in a cargo container. I live right next to the ocean. My strings will rust overnight if I don’t run a dehumidifier. Frets have never been polished. The wood will rot before anything happens to these frets.

 

[KnightBrolaire]

Gentlemen, thanks for your replies.
I ask because in my experience frets wear pretty fast when I bend. I have Jescar Evo gold frets for 3 months atm and I see noticeable wear or rather "attrition" which increases more and more. Time will tell how long frets will last, but from my perspective it doesn't look like far away (I expected more durability compared to nickel silver).

BTW, what kind of stainless steel frets last for 10 years in pristine condition? And by pristine you mean you didn't even had to polish them or something?

Are you sure you actually see wear, as in pitting/divots or are you just seeing some minor scratching? Unless you beat the hell out of your frets with harder strings those should be holding up for at least a couple of years if not more. if it's the latter, then polish up the frets.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

Gentlemen, thanks for your replies.
I ask because in my experience frets wear pretty fast when I bend. I have Jescar Evo gold frets for 3 months atm and I see noticeable wear or rather "attrition" which increases more and more. Time will tell how long frets will last, but from my perspective it doesn't look like far away (I expected more durability compared to nickel silver).

BTW, what kind of stainless steel frets last for 10 years in pristine condition? And by pristine you mean you didn't even had to polish them or something?

I used Jescar 55090SS, basically thier version of stainless steel Dunlop 6105.

I’ve worked with Evo Gold and even though it’s supposedly harder than nickel silver, I didn’t find any real difference. They’re advertised as being between nickel silver and stainless, but much much closer to NS in use.

 

[Mathemagician]

Gold is a REALLY soft metal. So no matter what they’re doing to the alloy, there starting from a very soft starting point.

 

[diagrammatiks]

Gold is a REALLY soft metal. So no matter what they’re doing to the alloy, there starting from a very soft starting point.

Evo gold doesn’t actually contain any gold.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

Gold is a REALLY soft metal. So no matter what they’re doing to the alloy, there starting from a very soft starting point.

They have as much gold in them as nickel silver frets have silver in them.

 

[Jonathan20022]

EVO is more of an aesthetic choice at this point, IE matching frets to gold hardware. Stainless Steel doesn't wear down with playing, I've played 20+ year old Parkers that had no wear at all. And the bodies had several dings and other damage.

You surely won't need a refret unless you only play one guitar. And even then, I imagine it'd take decades before you get to the point of even needing Fretwork in any capacity much less a Full Refret.

 

[pick_d]

Are you sure you actually see wear, as in pitting/divots or are you just seeing some minor scratching?

Yep. At first I was thinking it's just scratches. But then they get significantly wider basically "in a real time".
Let's say I try to learn a song with a vibrato on 4th string and 9th fret. Before I start - there's small scratch exactly on fret's crown. That's okay.
After few takes - the scratch is wider, after one or two days that scratch appears to be not just wider, but also deeper. It's even more noticeable on 1-3 strings (w/o gauge).
Not as bad as NS, but very close in terms of my perception of this wear.

I’ve worked with Evo Gold and even though it’s supposedly harder than nickel silver, I didn’t find any real difference. They’re advertised as being between nickel silver and stainless, but much much closer to NS in use.

That's exactly my experience too. Maybe just a little harder than NS in my experience. I don't feel as much friction as with NS and to be honest, totally opposite - it's very smooth to bend on Jescar Evo.

You surely won't need a refret unless you only play one guitar. And even then, I imagine it'd take decades before you get to the point of even needing Fretwork in any capacity much less a Full Refret.

That sounds inspiring
Too bad that most of manufacturers still use NS frets as a stock feature and, despite trying to look modern and technology-oriented companies, they still build most of their guitars with NS frets *cough* Ibanez *cough*.
Therefore getting guitar with stainless steel frets definitely limits the options unless we're talking about high-end guitars like Aristides appears to be.

 

[Jonathan20022]

Guitar players and builders have always been rather conservative in general and always are happy to add the tone argument to reasons why not go get certain specs.

"Stainless Steel Frets are way brighter than Nickel Steel", "You can't find a tech to work on Stainless Steel", "SS Frets wear Luthier Tools extremely quick"

Those are among a few excuses I hear whenever the conversation is brought up in certain communities. It's becoming more prevalent though, the issues people usually talk about are extremely minor, my first tech in Florida would just tag you with a $30 SS Upcharge with any fretwork to make up for possible wear on his tools.

But Schecter and Ibanez are starting to introduce Stainless into their lines, Ibanez (Premium/Uppercut/etc), Schecter (KM/Elites/etc). It'll take time but if the demand is there the manufacturers will respond accordingly.

 

[pick_d]

"Stainless Steel Frets are way brighter than Nickel Steel", "You can't find a tech to work on Stainless Steel", "SS Frets wear Luthier Tools extremely quick"

Yep, exactly those excuses everywhere.

But Schecter and Ibanez are starting to introduce Stainless into their lines, Ibanez (Premium/Uppercut/etc), Schecter (KM/Elites/etc). It'll take time but if the demand is there the manufacturers will respond accordingly.

Hope they won't turn from this path to (literally) shining bright stainless steel future and will add up more stuff with SS frets.

 

[Andrew Lloyd Webber]

Evo gold doesn’t actually contain any gold.

This reminds me too much of the time there was no gold medal in my bag of all-purpose baking flour. Trigger warning needed.

 

[Seabeast2000]

This reminds me too much of the time there was no gold medal in my bag of all-purpose baking flour. Trigger warning needed.

You got a bad bag bro.

 

[jco5055]

So I got to play an EBMM Majesty 7 today, it was very nice. Picking up a ~$1200 PRS CE24 afterwards, the PRS felt almost shitty in comparison.

Only reason I mention that in this thread is because I was talking to the worker at GC to see if they'd allow me to play the more expensive models, and I mentioned how I'm also interested in Aristides/want to try one out and his reply was "I'm ordering a few, those are some of the most perfect guitars you'll ever play". So now I'm even more excited to try one, seems like those in this thread that mentioned how amazing they are are telling the truth.

 

[diagrammatiks]

This reminds me too much of the time there was no gold medal in my bag of all-purpose baking flour. Trigger warning needed.

Your first golden shower must have surprised the hell out of you.

 

[Jonathan20022]

So I got to play an EBMM Majesty 7 today, it was very nice. Picking up a ~$1200 PRS CE24 afterwards, the PRS felt almost shitty in comparison.

Only reason I mention that in this thread is because I was talking to the worker at GC to see if they'd allow me to play the more expensive models, and I mentioned how I'm also interested in Aristides/want to try one out and his reply was "I'm ordering a few, those are some of the most perfect guitars you'll ever play". So now I'm even more excited to try one, seems like those in this thread that mentioned how amazing they are are telling the truth.

Trust me, this community of all places will throw the largest of fits if something isn't up to par with their expectations (With good reason)