Official Luthiers Forum!

Have you tried it?
How do you find it?

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

musicnomadcare.com- the reviews I've seen don't sound like it's very good. It loses it's diamonds too fast.

Brent

Yes we tried them and did not like them and didn't go forward using them. They are not ergonomic at all and crowing manually can be a long slog over an hours at times. Anything that is not comfortable in your hand you will regret.

Also when your files start to wear you have some length on the StewMac files permitting you to use other areas of the file to concentrate the filing on problem areas. Nomad is shorter and has less ability to do this.

We found that the abrasives were no match for StewMac files either so I second the prior comment on the abrasives being inferior and the fusing of the abrasives was no match for StewMac either.

We found that we did not like them very quickly with use.

One last thing. The StewMac files are expensive but they are well worth it. My very first one is still going strong after hundreds of fret dresses including many of them with EVO and stainless.

Maybe wait for a sale to help with the price recently StewMac had 20% off and they often have 15% off.

Just checked the round nose damping crowning files at StewMac are 15% off right now over the holiday weekend. That helps a bit.

Wanted to mention too the only reason we bought most if not all of the alternatives recently is Dave invented the Fret F***** motorized crowning system. So we needed a commercial file that could sand up to the tool driving the file at 25 times how I plod along manually with my files. The StewMac files hold up great even in our very harsh environment.

They are guaranteed for life too.

I haven't tried the StewMac fret crowning files, experience has taught me to take Hesh for his word with his reviews. I have tried Hosco fret crowning files and haven't been happy with them. I find that a 7-inch triangular Nicholson file with with the edges ground smooth works very well if you want to save some money.