Extreme fret wear after only 2 months on an Ibanez HPBKF720.

[DA4]

Hello, can anyone help my with my frets?
Some of my frets are already so extremely worn that they have formed real hollows and I had to set my action very high.
I have a relatively strong fretting hand and I only used factory strings and Daddario EXL110-7 strings but it can't because of this. I can throw away my frets after only 2 months.
Can anyone tell me what the problem could be? Material defects perhaps?
I have already sent the guitar to Thomann for a complaint, but they claim that it is my fault.
Pleas help me

 

[exoslime]

since you know the situation that your fretting hand is very strong, for your next guitar, look out for guitars with stainless steel frets or xtra hard frets and also work and practice on your fretting technique that you dont put too much pressure on the strings.
also ensue you will use clean and fresh strings with no rust, as soon as strings get a bit rough, it will also do more harm to the frets than shiny smooth new strings

 

[DA4]

@exoslime Thanks for your reply! All of my other guitars dont have stainless steel frets and I play them for a much longer period of time. I cleaned and changed my strings on a regular base. I know and I cared about all the small details that can cause fret damage. My problem is that I dont know why they got damaged so quickly eventhough I did everything I could. Am I missing something? Is it my fault or is it because of bad quality? I've never seen that frets get damaged so fast.

 

[exoslime]

hi, thanks for your reply and extra information, that was not clear on your first post, and welcome to the forum by the way happy to have you here

without seeing the guitar in detail and you said its only 2 months old, i also think this should not happen
but on the other said thomann support is very good and has a great reputation, they usually does not blame it on the customers, they have nothing to loose and could easily claim that with their distributor if its a clear hardware fault.

 

[DA4]

I don't know what you heard about Thomann, but I know some bad stories about them, but yes their reputation is very good and I couldn't believe it. They claimed it as normal wear and tear so I have to pay for the repair. I talked to a independet Thomann employee and he said, that he has never heard of anything near 2 months. It just can't be. I really cared about this guitar because it was my first expensive one. I don't know what else it could be except a hardware fault

 

[Bassturmator]

They claimed it as normal wear and tear so I have to pay for the repair.

Nobody wares frets in two months.

It just can't be.

Exactly.

I don't know what else it could be except a hardware fault

Me neither. I would not expect this from a company like Ibanez.

Thomann should react adequate.

*

 

[Elon]

Hello @DA4,
could you please post a few photos with details of the frets and the wear and tear.
That would be helpful to get an own impression and to understand your concerns better.

 

[DA4]

@Elon Sure, here are some pictures.
Note that this pictures were taken after I reportet the problem so I didn't change strings for a while because I would send this guitar to Thomann in the near future. Usually I would have changed the strings already. I dont play with that old strings.

 

[exoslime]

please no offense.. but that fretboard and these strings are looking really disgusting
i really fail to imagine that this instrument was only just 2 months old when i look at that dirty fretboard

but you can nicely see how the frets were affected.

 

[DA4]

@exoslime Yeah it really looks very dirty. Like I said, I didn't clean it after the report for maybe 2 weeks and I didn't play much in that time. Before that I cleaned it after every play and washed my hands before playing and after one month I even took the instrument apart and cleaned all the slits and pores. Everything was clean back then and when I took the pictures it didn't look that bad in real life like on the pictures. I think the light is affecting this. Before I sent it away I cleaned it. Maybe a lot of the comes form the wood itself? I really can't say where the dirt comes from.
but even if I put the fretboard through the deep fryer every day, the frets shouldn't wear out so quickly

Beitrag automatisch zusammengefügt: Mittwoch um 22:43

Here is a picture just before I shipped the guitar. Thats after I cleaned it.

 

[bagotrix]

The plain strings are obviously very rusty, and the rust spots turn them into a kind of file and scrape away the frets.

Even if you didn't play the guitar for 2 weeks or so, strings really shouldn't look that way. The only explanation I can think of is that those strings were of extremely bad quality, already old whne you gought the guitar or you've got extremely aggressive sweat, like Rory Gallagher reportedly had. Hard to tell, but the pickup pole screws in the last pic seem to show corrosion, too, which would confirm this as the reason. You probably should try other strings, preferably coated, to minimize corrosion. Plus you should really work on your technique - too much pressure needlessly slows you down, is bad for strings and frets, and could even cause physical problems like tendonitis in the long run.

Still the frets seem to wear very, even too fast, I'd say. But also that probably no dealer here in Germany would accept this as a guarantee case, except there was a known problem with a bad batch of frets for these guitars. I'm sorry, but I see few other solutions than changing the frets for stainless steel, the strings for coated ones and working on your fretting technique.

Greetz, bagotrix

 

[DA4]

@bagotrix Thankts for your reply and assessment!
It's a bit funny because everything you said I could do better, I did. I posted the problem elsewhere and everywhere people were stuck on my technique. After everyone said I couldn't play fast with it and that the notes were warped, I realize that I was wrong and that I don't have an extremely firm fingering hand because I can play very fast and don't warp the notes.
I accidentally specified the wrong string, because I was playing with coated strings, which were definitely not of poor quality. I played with Ernie Ball Paradigm STHB 7 String 10-62, sorry for the wrong information.
I repeat again that I would not play with such rusty strings and did not when it came to the wear.
I also had a strange feeling when I played the guitar for the first time. The bends somehow had a very high resistance. But it wasn't constant and not at all on some frets. After I took a closer look, I saw on the first day that the frets were very slightly flattened. I thought that these frets just looked like that and that the resistance would disappear after a few days. I also had black hands on the fretboard, as it seemed to have been freshly varnished or something. In retrospect, the deterioration of the frets had already started on the first day.
The rust in the pickup pole screw is very slight, I think it just came off the strings when they were so rusty. Otherwise there was never any trace of rust there.

 

[bagotrix]

All you write does indeed point to issues with the fret material, the frets simply being to soft.

If the dealer doesn't acknowledge a guarantee claim, you could look for someone who can test the hardness. Jewelers or pawn shops do that sometimes, but I don't know if it extends to nickel silver. Or maybe you find some metalworking company or toolworker in your vicinity, they usually have means to measure their raw material's hardness. If you can find some info about the average and minimum hardness of frets, this should give you better arguments for your guarantee claim.

Besides, you could always try and inform the manufacturer and/or the distributor (in this case, Meinl in Germany: https://meinl.de/en/imprint) and ask if there are known issues with this model. If a bad batch of frets has been found after installment, they will know about it and probably find a solution. Good luck!

 

[frankpaush]

I have a relatively strong fretting hand

strength is not the skill to handle musical instruments. Get yourself a teacher who can help training control.

 

[bagotrix]

"With great power comes great responsibility".