Per customer request, we are now proud to offer stainless steel Zero Glide frets! These frets basically do not wear out. This means they require no maintenance and never need to be replaced. Not only that, the stainless frets improve performance for tuning and bends. These frets are specially designed with an offset tang for our Zero Glide nut system. Comes in a pack of 3.
Available in Medium (.038"), Jumbo (.051"), and Super Jumbo (.058"), or an assorted pack of each size.
I bought the mandolin version and fitted it to my Gibson. There's a lot of extra material to remove, but the result was great. Easier tuning (the old nut had tight slots for the A strings), better intonation. Later I used one of the extra frets in the package to fix a tenor guitar. For that, I simply filed the necessary ledges in the existing nut and widened the string slots. It would be nice if Stew-Mac would also sell the offset tang frets separately, for retrofitting to an existing nut.
I put one on my Taylor 12 fret, it made a big improvement in string tone, tuning, and intonation. I'm now going to install them on all my guitars.
I play fingerstyle guitar. My favorite guitar is a Gretsch 5420 Electromatic . For some reason the designers at Gretsch moved away from the zero fret. When You string up with 10's or 9's I guess it probably doesn't matter much because the first position will be easy with light gauge strings. My touch and style of playing requires .012's. With heavier strings while the 5420 is beautiful to see and hear the first position was challenging to play. I installed the zero glide following the instructions in the package and to my amazing pleasure the 5420 played like my '66 Nashville used to. I couldn't be happier. Thanks to the people that designed this product. The tone is great the tuning is improved and the first position action is second to none.