I have body frets on one lute made of an ivory-ebony sandwich and they sound great up to the 14th fret. Cutting ivory is not easy though as it tends to shatter. Another lute I have has holly-ebony-holly frets. I like these flashy frets, but my friend Bob Hieronimus hates them and prefers that the body frets are almost invisible. Sterling
Sent from my iPhone On Oct 29, 2013, at 11:05 PM, Dan Winheld <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 > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
