Mosrites currently on Ebay/Speed Frets

[Veenture]

That last image shows nicely why a normal guitar won't intonate properly when the frets are worn. Are Mosrite speed frets compensated for this, by having a slightly different placement? If so, would refretting a Mosrite with standard frets make it play flat?

If it's compensation, it would have to be found in the fact that Mosrite speed frets are narrower than 'standard' (or vintage) size frets, minimizing the "discrepancy". According to the laws of nature, a Mosrite (or any other guitar) would not play flat (or sharp) with standard frets replacing the narrower (and shallower) Mosrite speed frets, regardless of any difference in scale length.

My Hallmark's frets are also narrower than standard size (or vintage) frets but are not dressed to match up with Mosrite speed frets. This could of course be achieved by filing them down so that they would come close to the speed frets, in comparison.

[rballister]

I combined the two images in Photoshop. On the left the alleged Fillmore 64 Mark I reissue with the equally alleged speed frets (don't think so!). On the right the 65 Mark I. Has anyone else heard (previous poster in this thread) that at some point Semie started using a more standard fret? In regard to intonation after filing a standard fret, I would suspect they would still be correctly intonated if they were all filed the same amount--the contact point would just be moved down a tiny bit on all the frets.

[MWaldorf]

The MIJ Mosrites I've seen have "speed-fret-able" frets. A bit of handy work with a flat file and voila - speed frets! That's also the way my Parts-rite was - the frets were installed but not dressed-down. There's a bit on how to do a speed fret job in my "Semi-Mosrite" thread, somewhere deep in the projects section.

As for intonation, if the frets are all level, the distance between frets remains the same, so moving the bridge saddles back the equivalent of one fret's width should handle intonation issues. Also, the Mosrites I've played have such low action that intonation is pretty easy to set.

[oipunkguy]

just wondering, are splitting hairs here? does a speed fret have to be exact specs? just asking.

[101Volts]

just wondering, are splitting hairs here? does a speed fret have to be exact specs? just asking.

In height, They're about 22 thousandths tall, Maybe only 20 thousandths depending on where you measure. (It's better to have slightly less height higher up on the fretboard) I'm not sure about the width of Mosrite's speed frets though.

Austin

[oipunkguy]

on my fillmore johnny model, all the frets are dressed down, except for the zero fret. my semie models all are dressed down even farther, zero fret included. still to me the term is a little bit more generic. to me it's just a small fret (banjo size) that is dressed down.