Ever had rusty frets?

drippycat

The reason I ask is that apparently the 2018 Gibson has frets that are:

"cryogenically treated. By exposing the fretwire to extreme temperatures you can ensure the fretwire will last longer and be more resistant against rust and general wear and tear.."

Rust? I've had rusty strings before & certainly rusty technique, but rusty frets..?

musteatbrain

Yep. Had a lot of condensation in a room and a telecaster I had ended up with rust on the frets. It was in a hard case for about a year untouched

richardhomer

Tarnished - yes. 

Rusty - no.

octatonic

Rusty Frets is my tranny name.

Evilmags

Rusty trumbones are better 

ICBM

Yes, but only on some awful cheap old acoustic guitar with steel frets.

As richardhomer said…


I'd also put cryogenically treating fretwire to stop corrosion firmly in the snake oil/bullshit category.

impmann

I've had green fuzz on the frets of guitar that had been badly stored.

I had a batch of guitars that I had to rework for a manufacturer that had a tarnish that looked remarkably like rust - I think they were very low quality nickel/steel - with more steel than nickel. 
But these, as @ICBM  says, these were cheap nasty guitars.

guitars4you

I've seen dirty, grebby, green, badly worn and gunged up with crap on, various occasions - sometimes down to storage, sometimes down to lack of care/maintenance and as one or two comment above, often on cheapish models

Gassage

Thing is, one of the reasons I downsized my gear and went for quality over quantiy was as much down to frets tarnishing and restringing dead strings as anything else.

As Roy Rogers once observed... 'you can only ride one horse with one ass.'

thumpingrug

I once went to Sandy Ball's.  Is it similar.

rico

Part of my day job is designing structural connections prone to high levels of corrosion and I can say that this cryogenic 'process' is complete bollocks. 

guitars4you

thumpingrug said:

I once went to Sandy Ball's.  Is it similar.

there was a band a few years ago called Rusty's dumpys nuts

WezV

thumpingrug said:

I once went to Sandy Ball's.  Is it similar.

Ah, sandy balls.  I am fairly sure we only went there because of the name.

daveyh

guitars4you said:

thumpingrug said:

I once went to Sandy Ball's.  Is it similar.

there was a band a few years ago called Rusty's dumpys nuts

There was, and I know one of them!

CasperCaster

Wasn't it Dumpys Rusty Nuts? Saw them in Leeds when I was a student back in the late 80's!

daveyh

CasperCaster said:

Wasn't it Dumpys Rusty Nuts? Saw them in Leeds when I was a student back in the late 80's!

Lol it was, didn't clock that. 

guitars4you

daveyh said:

CasperCaster said:

Wasn't it Dumpys Rusty Nuts? Saw them in Leeds when I was a student back in the late 80's!

Lol it was, didn't clock that. 

ditto me - at least you knew what I meant

HHwarner

Saw Dumpys a few times when they used to support Hawkwind

oldfoxy

rico said:

Part of my day job is designing structural connections prone to high levels of corrosion and I can say that this cryogenic 'process' is complete bollocks. 

For steels, I would think the corrosion resistance would likely reduce due to carbide precipitation. Not sure on nickel silver, but I'm struggling to think of a mechanism which might improve it.  It's certainly a fairly common enough treatment to improve steel properties though

RandallFlagg

I've poked a round a few ladies rusty sheriffs badges in my time but never had rusty frets

Ravenous

drippycat said:

"cryogenically treated. By exposing the fretwire to extreme temperatures you can ensure the fretwire will last longer and be more resistant against rust and general wear and tear.."

Well I don't know how it would happen (I'm not much of a metallurgist) but it sounds dodgy in guitar terms:

If the fretwire magically becomes more resistant to wear, it must be harder or stronger in some way.  Surely that would affect the sound.  Wouldn't this annoy purists?  (The type who would not want to go as far as stainless steel anyway.)

The only possible way I can think of this working is something vaguely like case hardening in steels.  If you rapidly plunge the material in very cold material, the outer layers will contract first, and be stretched (and either "stress relieved" or "work hardened") because the core is still warm, for a very short time.

This sounds a bit tenuous though... it would depend on the exact circumstances in which it's done - I would want to see proof really, not just the theoretical argument I gave above.