Last Friday I dropped my guitar off at Freddy's Frets. I got a chance to talk to him for a bit and I'm confident my guitar is in good hands. I ended up spending more than I wanted but I'm confident it will be worth it.
He agreed that my high e string was falling off the fret board because A the fretboard is too over rolled and B because the frets are over beveled. Unfortunately a simple fret job will not fix this, which is what I half expected and was afraid of. He'll have to remove the frets and sand down the fretboard till the edges are sharper and not so over rolled. Thats the biggest of my concerns as the neck is fairly chunky and I don't want to lose that. Then he'll have to refinish the fretboard, which to me is a plus as I hated the finish on it. He'll simply be sealing it and it will have a very light nitro coating. Then he's going to refret with stainless steel. I talked to him about the back of the neck and initially I said to leave it as is as it would have cost me another $100 to finish it the same as the fingerboard. After I left I thought whats $100. I hate the finish on it and it would probably bug me to have the fret board as I like it and not the back of the neck. So I called him back and gave him the go ahead to do the back of the neck as well.
Wit the very light nitro coating its going to wear off rather quickly and look relic'd. This is a big plus for me, not because of looks but because of feel. The lack of finish on my Master-built Nocaster is what makes it the best feeling neck I've ever played. Now my #1 guitar will be the same.
If it didn't cost so dam much I'd have my custom shop strat done the same and with stainless steel frets. But since there's nothing wrong with the play-ability of that guitar it wouldn't make sense.
The unfortunate part of this whole thing is I'll be with out my #1 guitar for 6 to 7 weeks.