That can certainly be done, and it's not difficult or expensive. But, it wrecks a lot of other things to solve a minor problem, so it's not a good solution.
As you correctly identified, this is a technique problem. Fortunately, the solution isn't as difficult as you might imagine. But, it takes two separate steps, and it's not something that'll work overnight, or perhaps not even in a month. It takes <shudder> practice. But, trust me. It always pays off.
What you're looking for is room and when it comes to real estate on the neck, it's like land. They ain't making any more of it. So, it's up to you to make the most of what you've got.
As an exercise, pick a fret, any one past the first will do. Play the note there, then drop back a half step and bend the string up before playing the note, doing your best to bend up to the same note you just played one fret up. This will teach you two things - how to keep from sounding a note until you want to, and how far you have to go to get to it. Ideally, you want to be able to hit the same note one fret down and up, without hearing the bend. Once you get the hang of that, move it around. That is, up and down the neck, half step apart, but hitting the same note. It'll take a while, but given time and practice it'll become second nature.
Another exercise to get your bending accuracy up is to go in the other direction. On the same fret, hit the note you want, then the note a half step up, then the note a full step up, all without sounding the bend. They should sound like 3 discrete notes.
Another thing you'll get from all that is the ability to stretch to a note without hitting/sounding it, then hit it and wind down from it. That's a cool sound that not many guys do without a slide. Start from one note you've stretched to, and drop either a half or whole step.
Why would anyone want to do any of that? So you can wank on a note without pulling it off the neck. If you're already stretched up, you've got all kinds of room to apply vibrato because you're already up a half step. Gives you a good quarter inch or so to goof around, instead of wrecking your nut to gain a 32nd or so and squeezing up the rest of the strings that don't need any more crowding than they already have.
ccasion14:
