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I can't seem to find anywhere to buy a few feet of dunlop 6105 fretwire. I'm doing a partial refret on a Martin DCXE formica dreadnaught and 6105 seems closest to whats on there. Any ideas where to buy? If not, does anyone have a few feet of wire to sell?

Best,


Jonas

If anyone has or knows where to find anything similar I need fretwire with .055" crown height and .090" crown width.

Best,

Jonas

Dunlop wire is generally crap. Order from Jescar or one of their vendors. Plus since most manufacturers like Gibson, Fender, and Martin use Jescar, and you can buy the exact same wire as original.

I don't recall ever seeing 90x55 on a new Martin. That's a stock Gibson size, but Martins typically come with 80x43.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Thank you for the reply David. Yes, this fret size is unusual for a Martin, but it is one of their lower end models which I don't know much about other than they are made in Mexico, and they are made of HPL, better known as Formica. Anyway, this one had frets 1-10 very well worm, so perhaps it was already regretted once. Anyway, I did find a guy on eBay selling Jescar fretwire in the size I need. Thanks for the tip regarding Jescar being better than dunlop. I trust your judgement!

Best,

Jonas

EXCUSE ME? When the heck did this happen?
For decades Dunlop has been the standard of the industry.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Dunlop established themselves as the standard for post-production refrets simply because for some time they were the only ones who marketed their wire in small quantities directly to consumers, music stores, and small repair shops, and were all you could readily find in a variety of sizes and small quantity. They established themselves as the default by branding, marketing, and availability, not by quality. I don't know of any manufacturers for example, who use Dunlop wire (although some have used the Dunlop size/numbering system as a commonly familiar reference).

Most U.S. manufacturers use Jescar today. Martin, Gibson, and Fender do, and I'm not sure about Taylor but I know they were considering switching to Jescar a few years back. Before I switched to Jescar about 13 years ago, I used wire from Polymetallurgical Corp., which is the company that took over Horton-Angell which was a main wire supplier since the early 1900's. They were still making the varying tang size wire for Martin compression refrets, even after Martin had switched to Jescar for production.

The Dunlop wire I'm pretty sure comes from Dongsan Rolling Mill or East Mountain Shape Wire in S Korea, and aside from being softer (18% nickel wire is available rolled to various hardnesses, 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, or full hard), I found the dimensions less consistent, and the lines and corners less clean. I don't have any of my journals on hand where I kept track of this when researching years ago, but I recall Dunlop testing on the Vickers HV5 scale in the 140-180 range on various wires. Jescar nickel wire (rolled in Germany) tests at HV5-200. I never figured out where Stewmac sources their wire (their hardness came in at 179, but they used Rockwell B testing anyway), but I'd rate it better than Dunlop, not quite as good as Jescar.

There are a few other sources, Sintoms Russian wire, Sanco Japan, maybe a few others I can't think of, but I've been through them pretty thoroughly (and am continuing even more exhaustive wear testing today), and am pretty committed to Jescar right now. We do have a bunch of old Dunlop wire around the shop, but decided to repurpose it for art projects rather than refrets.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

That fretwire guitar is too freaking cool! Thanks for the info on Jescar wire - good stuff.

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John Lewis
Wannabe builder owned by 2 crazy dachshunds

Guess my hoarded tubes of Dunlop wire from the 80's just increased in value.

_________________
"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince