Where to buy fretwire?

[All_¥our_Bass]

Long story short I found out that the last fret on my guitar isn't seated properly. It's sticks up a tiny bit on the treble side, and has a negative effect on the tone of my high e string (twangy/buzzy, less sustain, bent notes die out VERY quickly). The rest of the frets are fine as far as I can tell. Even though an entire refret is "the best" on paper, I REALLY don't think it's necessary.

 

[mtillem]

They don't have the quickest turn around on orders but they have a lot of guitar parts.

Guitar Parts | Bass Guitar Parts | Amp Parts | AllParts.com

 

[Nick1]

 

[MaxOfMetal]

Stewart-MacDonald: Everything for building and repairing stringed instruments! comes to mind.

Though, have you considered just re-seating the fret, or leveling it before just ripping it out? You're going to have to cut, crown, dress, and level anyway.

 

[darren]

Stewart-MacDonald Fretwire at Stewart-MacDonald

Fretwire - Information and Pricing at LMI

Fretwire

But yeah, a full refret is overkill. Just get the high fret re-seated and/or ground level and re-crowned.

 

[All_¥our_Bass]

How would I go about re-seating a fret?

 

[MaxOfMetal]

How would I go about re-seating a fret?

Heat the fret up with a low wattage soldering iron, if you must, don't place it directly on the fret and use a medium to diffuse the heat slightly. Too much heat can cause the glue holding down the fretboard to degrade. You need the heat though to remove the fret without damaging it.

Then, use a craft knife, and/or scaler to remove the offending fret. Then clear out the slot of old glue and debris with a craft knife or very thin file. Also, do what you can to clean up the fret's tang of old glue.

Put some epoxy in the cleaned fret slot and gently press the fret in most of the way. Then use a small rubber/plastic mallet to hit the fret home evenly. Be careful to seat it evenly this time.

That's a highly simplified method, but it should give you some indication of what's ahead of you. It should be noted that everything you'll be doing here, you'd have to do, and then some, if you were to just replace the fret.

Also, you can probably band-aid the situation by filing the fret on the raised side, though that'll take even more finesse.

 

[All_¥our_Bass]

Thanks guys.
I won't be doing this for a bit though, since I need to get the appropriate tools-I don't have a soldering iron for instance, but know how to use one since I've used them for electronics in the past (I took an electronics class in highschool and have repaired output jacks and loose grounding wires on guitars and basses).

I'm gonna take the re-seating road for now, and if that doesn't work, THEN I'll replace the fret.