Bamboo. Comes pre-shaped in the form of bbq/fondue skewers and/or tooth picks. David
******************************* David van Ooijen [1]davidvanooi...@gmail.com [2]www.davidvanooijen.nl ******************************* On 30 October 2013 06:05, Dan Winheld <[3]dwinh...@lmi.net> wrote: Talk of tastini has gotten me wondering, what is the best material for body frets? I have been playing a lot of music recently that dances around in the lute's stratosphere- Melchior Neusidler, Mudarra, Milan's advanced fantasias, etc. The plain wooden frets I have now- probably Maple, maybe Boxwood; sound pretty terrible compared to the gut frets. I am thinking Ebony, some other dense tropical hardwood, bone, or even some modern synthetic- but only if aesthetically acceptable & sonically superior. If anyone knows of some magic non-metallic body fret material I would really like to know. Part of the problem is the buzzing, unclean sound that results from a squared off fret- an inevitable result of having to shave them down for proper clearance after gluing down. Ideally, they should be crowned- or at least rounded edges for best tone. Tough, fussy job to do even before installation for the non-luthier DIY amateur. Thanks all for any enlightenment on this bit of lute pain. Dan To get on or off this list see list information at [4]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. mailto:davidvanooi...@gmail.com 2. http://www.davidvanooijen.nl/ 3. mailto:dwinh...@lmi.net 4. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html