Fender Med jumbo frets soft?

[69strat]

I did some investigating and it seems Fender uses the 6155 Dunlop frets .103 X .046 for the bead. At least the specs match up. I don't know if Fender manufacturers their own frets or outsource like they do for their Gotoh tuners and such.

Anyhow, Dunlop lists these as soft nickel and their other frets as hard nickel. Can someone explain this? Is there any advantage to soft nickel? Wouldn't it just wear faster? Or am I misunderstanding what that means?

Here's the link and specs
http://www.jimdunlop.com/products/ma...ets/chart.html

[photoweborama]

I don't know the answer, but my wife bought me an AmSer Tele in 2001, and the frets wore down really fast. like 6 months later, all the crowns were gone in the middle of the neck.

I have a 2003 AmSer Strat with a 2004 neck plate I got in the summer of 2004, and the frets are holding up MUCH better, and my Tele has a Hwy 1 neck I got from Curtisstetka, and the frets show almost no wear, and that's my #1 guitar....

[69strat]

I do hear a lot of people complaining about Fender's frets wearing abnormally fast. I want to get one of my guitar's refretted and I'm trying to figure out which one to get that will last pretty good. Not ready to go stainless steel right now.

Are Stew Mac's frets more durable than Dunlop? Who else makes frets?

[LesPauloholic]

I've used Dunlop 6150's and 6105's. I really like the feel of 6105's on fender guitars.

Greg