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A friend had a re-fret done on a Strat and now it plays sharp at the first few frets. He admits to having a heavy hand when playing. I checked the guitar and the notes are correct when fretted lightly at the fret. Is this simply a case of the crowns being too high? The fretwire seems to be in the "medium" range and I measured the height at around .040"

Thanks,
Chuck

The harder one grips the strings, the sharper one's guitar plays, and the higher the frets, the sharper it goes. Your friend needs to adjust his technique or get very short frets.

If most of his playing is in the first few positions and he rarely plays up the neck you can adjust the intonation to help compensate for it. A compensated nut may help a lot as well, though a bit more difficult on a Fender.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

He must be playing pretty hard, the lower frets take the most pull to make them sharp.

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http://www.tinyhouseandland.com

try re-doing the intonation set-up thing. Instead of open string vs 12th fret go first fret vs 13th & 3d vs 15th. I also agree with Howard, go for a compensated nut.
Fool around with more releif - lower the wound strings action , vs less releif - higher action on the wound stringers.
If it was OK before the re-fret it can be made OK again.

EDTIT: check if the nut is too high.

Thanks to all for the help. The height of the nut is OK now, but when I lower the fret height I'll have to adjust it. I'm pretty convinced at this point that it is a fret height/heavy handed player that's the issue.

Chuck