Fretboard Removal??

Dan Mooney

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Portland, Oregon
I've picked up a project guitar and it seems like the former user had some serious finger nails. What is the easiest to remove the fretboard? The neck is very straight and I don't want to do anything to hurt that so I don't know if heat or steam would be a good idea. Any help appreciated. I can get a new rosewood fretboard from Stew-Mac for less than $20. with the proper scale length, fret slots already cut.

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Far from being close to resembling anything like a luthier, but I have removed mine a few times with just a hair dryer and a paint scraper, slow and easy....fwiw, none of the ones I've removed were older than a week or two of being attached, so your mileage might vary...

With the double fret markers on the seventh fret, I'm curious, was/is this a mandolin or uke? Have fun!
 
With the double fret markers on the seventh fret, I'm curious, was/is this a mandolin or uke? Have fun!

It's a 6 string guitar(Cameo Brand) I haven't been able to find much about them on the web, but I imagine it's from the 70's or 80's. I'll try the hair dryer and Iron. and see which works best. Thanks
 
Not yet, I'm trying to decide if I want to put the money and work into something that might be just a mediocre guitar. I put in on the back burner for the time being.

From what I can tell about Cameo guitars, that's probably a good approach to take with this one. You might go from a junky guitar to a junky guitar* with a nice fingerboard.

Those marks you're seeing on the existing fingerboard are from string wear, and you can tell the wood is stained. They used a soft, cheap wood n the fingerboards. That right there is an indication that the quality of wood in the rest of the guitar is suspect. ;)




* I should mention that I have nothing against some junky guitars. I used to teach lessons on a beat up Sears guitar that played and sounded great for the purpose. But it was a kind of rare bird, as junky guitars go.
 
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