Eko Guitar Finish Removal

[Matt Haugen]

Hi All. I am about to start a new project, an Eko guitar. Almost every Eko I have seen has had nasty finish cracks, as does this one. The finish very thick and difficult to remove. What tool or chemical is best for the removal of this stuff? Thank you.

[LARRY KLOSE]

Why bother?  

I had an Eko 12 string from the mid 60's.  I removed the finish by salvaging the useful parts (the replaced machine heads) and pitching the rest.  I gave the remains to a luthier friend who threw them up on a shelf with the rest of the parts he keeps for those repair jobs that aren't worth doing otherwise.

The Eko was a total brick--it sounded nearly as bad as an unplugged electric, although it purported to be acoustic.  The last straw was when the re-glued bridge pulled up again--taking a couple of layers of the plywood top with it.  Worst guitar I ever owned and maybe the worst one I ever saw or knew about.  It even beat out my first guitar: a Silvertone from the attic with 1/4" action.  The Eko did have good action before it croaked--probably because it had so much plywood in it that it weighed about 12 pounds.  I bought it because I was stuck overseas with nothing to play and it was cheap.  Cheap guitars have come a long way.

Larry