Cleaning the Fretboard and Frets
It's December 16, 2025, and we've just begun to whip this Ariana AF-15 Folk Guitar back into shape. We'll start with the frets, then. After repeated scrubbing with 0000 steel wool and lots of elbow grease, most of the crud has been removed. This allows us to move on to the grimy fretboard. No pussyfooting here, folks. The grime is so deeply ingrained that only a blade will be of any use. And so a scraping do we go, followed by more scrubbing with 3M Scotch-Brite Pads and cleanup with naphtha.
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| Fretboard and Frets Before Cleaning |
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| Scrubbing the Frets |
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| Scraping the Fretboard |
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| Maroon 3M Scotch-Brite Pad in Use |
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| Cleanup With Naphtha |
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| Here's the Result |
Replacing the Tuners
The stock "trapezoid" tuners need to be replaced, and I've found a decent set of Chinese sealed tuners (Longteam GM-01).There's no information about gear ratio and such, but they feel solid and turn smoothly enough. The new tuners, however, will not fit into the existing holes as they're 10 mm in diameter, while the holes are 6 mm. So, out comes my trusty reamer, and now everything fits nicely. I also have to plug the existing screw holes, drill new ones, and install the new tuners.
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| Stock Tuners Disassembled |
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| Replacement Tuners |
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| New Tuner Does Not Fit |
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| Reaming a Tuner Hole |
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| The Tuner Now Fits Nicely |
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| Reaming Completed |
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| Existing Screw Holes Plugged |
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| New Tuners Installed - Image 1 |
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| New Tuners Installed - Image 2 |
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