MIMF

I have a Yamaha FG 230 on the bench for some repair.
Where coud I find the narrow tang fretwire that was originally used in the 70s.

Dimensions are:

Width of crown: 2 mm / .079"
Height: about 1 mm
Tang width: 0.4 mm / 0.017"
Depth of tang: 2 mm / 0.080 "


I would prefer to not recut the fingerboard if I can avoid it.

Thank you

Hi Alain,
There aren't too many fret wire mills to choose from. I'd start with Jescar but I don't think I've ever see a tang narrower than .0185" anywhere.
See: https://www.jescarguitar.com/shop/jesca ... ire-37080/
There's a mill in Russia http://sintoms.com/FretsProduction.htm and their 206109 might be as close as you're going to get.
There's a mill in the states that sells through Stew Mac and Dunlop.
There're a couple of mills in Korea, Dongsan Rolling Mill or East Mountain Shape Wire. There are some net rumors that Dunlop has been sourcing their wire here which explains why the quality has fallen so far in the last 10-20 years.
Anyone who has a choice goes with Jescar first.

Thank you David. It look like I will have to recut the fretboard after all.
Jescar is asking way too much for shipment to my place.

I can't mail a paperclip to Canada without it costing $9.98 so perhaps try https://nextgenguitars.ca/brands/Jescar.html. You might also be able to order from Germany or a UK based supplier. You can also purchase Jescar wire from Luthier's Mercantile http://LMII.com and they may have better shipping rates.

I recall stewmac selling a jig to customize tang width. Maybe it was just for the teeth. I like to cut back the tang and apply black CA to the ends of the slots and have no tang showing. I used tang nippers for a while but they wore out so now I tediously do this with a dremel and a cutoff wheel burning my fingertips. It actually doesn’t take that long to do once you get into the rhythm. The tang is only about 1/16” deeper than the end of the slot and the black CA can almost make the slot invisible against rosewood. It’s very tidy and dressing the fret ends is a lot more straight forward with better looking results. I glue a strip of abs binding to the sides of my slotting saw to achieve a uniform slot depth. Using the black CA on a maple fretboard provided a nice visual effect.

I built my own version of Stew-Mac's fret barber. There is no reason you couldn't use that to file the tang as thin as you want. Of course that will remove the barbs but it might still work if you glue the frets in.

I do it like Barry says