Hi all
On my 25 year old Olson (my main guitar), I've had the first 5-6 fret wires replaced three times over the past 25 years (5 the first time, and 6 ever since). In addition, I've had them dressed at least once in between the replacements, usually two dressings in between.
The first partial refret was by a credentialed Martin repair person locally, and ever since by Michael Bashkin (luthier) in Ft Collins, Colorado. He tells me that he can dress them at least once more before we need to replace them again, and then replace them once more after that before a total fret job.
My 14 and 16 year old Bashkin OM and Kronbauer mini-Jumbo have not needed refret work to date.
Michael reworked the frets a couple years after I bought the OM because he felt he had not done the job as well as he should have. He just asked me to leave it with him while I was on vacation and did the work for me (I didn't even know what he was going to do). It was as amazing after he worked on it as before, and I have had a full setup done once and he may have dressed frets during that.
Having taught intermediate and advanced fingerstyle guitar locally for 40 years, I've seen, and handled, guitars dressed by less skilled techs which need a full fret job after only one or two partial refret jobs. Obviously these techs are removing more material from the fret wires during the process.
If I were to need a full fret job, I'd likely get the Jescar EVO (gold colored) fret wires, which are harder than normal nickel fret wire, but not as hard as stainless steel.
I play with dented frets till they buzz. Being an avid hammer-on player who also does a lot of slurs (which also involves a hammer-on technique), I put dents in multiple frets. It's not from hard over-grip pressure while playing repeated chord progressions. But dents are merely cosmetic…for quite a while.
A dent isn't an issue (for me) till it buzzes. And after I accumulate enough dents, and one starts to buzz, that's when I set up an appointment to have it looked at. Then if needed a fret dressing, or partial refret job is scheduled.
Hope this adds to the discussion...
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