Refret

My Fender Strat has a much cleaner neck than this one. It does, on the other hand, show a similar level of fret wear.

Funny thing about fret wear. I don’t really notice it until I get string buzz or intonation issues.

Two weeks back, I was hearing lots of pitch issues coming from my guitar. I actually stopped midway through a song to check on my tuning. Everything was fine and as soon as I started playing, there it was. At first I thought it might be my technique. Perhaps I was pressing in a way to take a string or two out of pitch.

I got home and I checked the intonation. I changed the strings so that they were fresh. I checked my open tuning and then the harmonics on the 12th fret.

Perfect. No issues.

I then played a few chords.

Off. Really off.

So, I took a closer look. And, sure enough, fret wear. Extensive fret wear. Primarily on the frets where the G and B strings hang out. Pretty much all up the neck.

I do put a lot of hours on my Strat. However, the timing could not be worse. I have a major performance coming up in just two weeks. And the guitar luthier that I use generally has a two-week backlog.

I placed a call pleading for some help but I am not too optimistic.

I suspect that I will need a refret. And that is a pretty big job.