How long has the guitar been together? I've no reasoning behind my thinking but i like guitars to settle a bit when their freshly bolted together. How high does your action sit on that string?
It could be a poor fretjob. they do happen though its unlikely if it only affects one string. Luckily its not the end of the world to sort out.

I'd be looking at the saddle and nut. One thing i have noticed with mexican guitars is the nut can be poorly cut. I wonder if this could carry over to lower priced american guitars.

The stickiness is new nitro. Give it a year and it should be gone. Until then wax and polish nearly constantly.

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No no and no

Hi BigJay. We'd love to see pics of your new guit, if you feel like posting 'em here...

Regarding the neck. You can check the fretting yourself if you want, at least approximately. Adjust the trussrod to get the neck absolutely straight, when sighting from the headstock towards the heel, holding the guitar upright (not flat on a table). You must detension the strings to do this.

Once the neck is straight just lay a two foot steel rule edge on along the frets at different points across it's width. Then look very closely to see if it is touching the top of every fret all the way across all of them.

You can get more scientific about it if you want. Stewart-Macdonald sell this little fret rocker - watch the vid on this page to get an idea of what this stuff is about:

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Speci ... ocker.html

Anyhow. You'll get an idea whether you need to take your frets to a tech...

As to the stickiness of the neck. You're Highway One neck is finished in polyurethane, like almost every other Fender neck. It is the hardest wearing finish and best for the job. The only exception I can think of off hand is the Eric Johnson Strat which has nitrocellulose for vintage vibe. There may be one or two others, but not many.

In the fullness of time that stickiness will fade, due to simple wear rather than drying of the lacquer. Unlike nitro that urethane is unlikely to have much more hardening to do. But if you don't want to wait just take some grade 0000 wire wool (available very cheaply from any hardware store) and rub at the back of the neck very lightly. Just enough to take the high gloss off - and then stop! You don't want to risk going through the finish.

You can take the gloss off the fingerboard too if you want, but be careful around the frets. Though fine, that wire wool will decrown the fret top some if you are overly rough with it.

Good luck - C

very interrested jay it was but,also had a lot
of information. the highway one seems to start
trouble were ever it go's. its simply a brilliant guitar!

BigJay remember even after you get the relief set right on the neck that the first 8 or 9 frets up from the body should be flat and the relief comes in from that point up to the nut. If that area that is supposed to be flat has a hump then it will need to be addressed and refreted.

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

Hey BigJay: have you seen the "pics of your Strat" thread? 97 pages of pics so far with over 425,000 viewings! The majority of those are probably not unique - but we don't mind at all!

The one thing you can be sure of round here is nobody's gonna say, "oh dear, not another picture of a Stratocaster..."

- C

Seriously, it won't need refretting. At most it might need one of the frets reseating, or a touch of fret dressing. Both possibilities quite unlikely. Any more than that and a new neck needs to go back where it came from.

Though if your problem is around the top frets then my bet would be on set up adjustments sorting the problem out.

I wouldn't worry: that guitar's gonna work fine for you.

Now, show us that guit!

Cheers - C

True in wont need to be refreted. What I meant was that if there is a hump you have to remove those frets where the hump is and sand and reset the frets there. Takes time to get the radius back right on the board and put 4 or so frets back in after removing a swollen spot in a neck most case its not worth the cost when you can buy a new one $50 $60 for a couple frets then the other work.

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

Pk this is a shot way out in the dark but do you use Schaller straplocks and play most of the time sitting down?

well i used to and sometimes i got serious buzz on some notes and just could not figure out what it was(I started to think my neck was broken!!)
but after sometime i discovered that the straplocks were cusing the "buzzing" it sounded like it came from the neck but it was the schallers vibrating, so now I play either standing up or with the strap off....

I doubt this helps you but it was worth a try.....

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It's a mix between Jazz and Funk, it's called "Junk"