Repair near Lebanon NJ?

[JC Whitney]

I have an old friend in Lebanon NJ who bought a Mexican Fender Strat about three years ago. He's played the bass since the early 80's, and now that he's getting good on those six tiny strings it's become clear that that pesky buzzing sound isn't due to driver error - it's a fret that wasn't fully seated in the first place. He's reluctant to spend the few hundred quoted by the local big box guitar store on a $400 instrument. Can anyone recommend a good, reasonably priced, repair person in that neck of the woods?

[Joshua Levin-Epstein]

Mark Wybierala often posts here and is located in Trenton, which is (according to Google) 44 miles from Lebanon. Why not give him a buzz? His posts are under the repair topic (and elsewhere).

Joshua

[Mark Wybierala]

I got an email..A couple hundred is silly for just about anything wrong with a strat short of needing a significant number of frets replaced. I dont know the rules about this on
mimf but you can certainly send me an email.

[Barry Daniels]

Yes, please take that discussion to email.

[Mark Wybierala]

On a strat with an unseated fret...
As long as the guitar is already having an issue with what looks like an unseated fret, you are not going to make much worse by tryin to just seat the fret yourself. Support the neck behind the fret in question on yout thigh and use a small block of wood between a small hammer and the fret and try to just tap the fret into place. AT the very least, you should be able to improve the situation.

[Mark Swanson]

AT the very least, you should be able to improve the situation.

Not always! I don't want to knock Mark's know-how or willingness to help...but sometimes just tapping a fret that is popping up will actually make it worse. Many times I have found that they won't stay in the slot in the first place, and tapping makes the fret straighten out and just causes it to pop up more. Rather than tapping it back down, I like to run just a tiny bit of CA into the slot and use a clamp and a block of wood to hold it down in there and level with the other frets around it.

[JC Whitney]

Thanks all. Sorry about not following up sooner... got buried with work (which these days is something to be grateful for).
Mark - I'll pass along your contact info to the owner.

[Steve Graves]

I do not want to always agree with anyone but Mark is right again. CA and a C clamp.