Strat Trouble

GreenKnee · Post by **GreenKnee** » Sun Jan 22, 2012 3:13 pm

So, I played a gig on Friday night, my first gig with my strat. I dig in more, and play harder when playing live, but this has never been a problem with any of my other guitars; mustangs, jaguars etc.

Firstly, the D string broke halfway through a song, which wasn't disastrous as I had spare strings, so I quickly swapped it, and carried on.

Looking at the guitar today though, on the first fret under the low E, there is a LOT of fret wear for a guitar thats under a month old. I do start the set with some feedback playing F on the first fret, and giving it some vibrato, but I haven't noticed any considerable wear on any of my other guitars. I noticed it when playing this morning, and there was a frightening amount of buzz from that first fret. The string had also bent a little round the fret, so I swapped that string out, and the buzz reduced, but didn't go away. Before playing the gig there was no buzz anywhere on the strat.

The strat is a 2011 american standard. Are these frets noticeably soft compared to others? I'm frightened of how quickly these frets could wear out if I play it as regularly as I am doing currently.

I have tried taking photos of the wear, but my crappy iPhone camera can't focus that close in to the guitar.

Jack

mordechaister · Post by **mordechaister** » Sun Jan 22, 2012 3:46 pm

Are you using the same kind of strings on all your guitars? Stainless steel strings will chew frets up quicker than nickel ones.

GreenKnee · Post by **GreenKnee** » Sun Jan 22, 2012 4:02 pm

I use ernie ball 11s on everything other than my strat. On my strat I use 9s, Fender super bullets, which are nickel plated steel, purely because 9s came on the guitar, and I tried these, and they feel so smooth and nice to play.

mordechaister · Post by **mordechaister** » Sun Jan 22, 2012 4:21 pm

Yeah I like Fender's strings too actually.

That's really weird though. Did you buy the guitar new and under warranty? If it were me I would give the folks at Fender a hard time just for the hell of it.

GreenKnee · Post by **GreenKnee** » Sun Jan 22, 2012 8:40 pm

Managed to get a half decent photo:

Yeah I bought it new from an authorised Fender dealer, I'll give them a call tomorrow

mordechaister · Post by **mordechaister** » Sun Jan 22, 2012 8:58 pm

Jeez I'd be annoyed too if I bought a brand new USA made guitar and saw that kind of wear in a months time. I tried to find a spec for the fret wire they use but to no avail.

JJLipton · Post by **JJLipton** » Mon Jan 23, 2012 1:30 am

If the neck has too much relief, you'll tend to notice wear in the cowboy chord region. This happened on my acoustic.

61fury · Post by **61fury** » Mon Jan 23, 2012 2:25 am

Some one on the Tele forum suggested that it might just be clearcoat wear. This was in reference to the Squier series. Claimed that Fender doesn't always remove the clear from the frets