Shellacked fretboard: What to do?

[Kerry Krishna]

 I recently got a 1930s Kay Kraft Nick Lucas that someone did this to the fretboard. Any ideas on what to do to get it all cleanly off? It certainly does not need a refret either. AND there are plenty of other problems with it too... 

[charley erck]

Denatured alcohol. This is in contrast to good natured alcohol

[John]

There used to be a bottle of tung oil in my shop that had lost its label. I picked it up one day and on a strip of tape written with a sharpie were the words "tung in cheek oil" I always wondered who had done that .... Kerry if that doesn't work use a feeler guage sharpened like a scraper. 

[Robbie Collins]

I second denatured alcohol. Acetone is faster, but bad for inlays and bindings.

[Ned Knepp]

 All the above. 

Alcohol is the solvent for shellac. I've stripped shellac with it plenty of times before. If the shellac is old it may take longer to melt with Alcohol but it will come off.  If the shellac is thick, scraping will speed things up as well as breaking top surface, allowing the solvent better contact.  Acetone WILL be faster, particularly on old shellac but as Robbie said, it can be hard on other things too. 

I'd check the finish on the neck to see how effected it is by which ever solvent you choose. It will give you an idea of how careful you need to be with the edges.  It's probably safe to assume that the whole neck is finished in the same thing.

[Kerry Krishna]

 It is actually one of the worst refinish jobs that has ever come through my shop. I have serious doubts that I will be able to clean this up to anything close to the kind of job I wanted it to be. It is so  far gone, I don't even want to post pics.  

[Ned Knepp]

It MUST be bad for YOU to not want to post pictures!

  I've run into more than one "refinish" that was a total mess. Sometimes the work is really good then they ruin it all with a trashed "finish" job... or a nice looking finish that 1/4 inch thick. That one's OK though because I figured out that it pretty easy to chip it off.  O particular interest to you might be that it was on a KayKraft mandolin that looked really good on Ebay. 

 There seem to be a lot of people with a very strong aversion to sanding and no patience for drying. At least that appears to be a very common component of the bad finishes I've seen... along with the "overspray" that didn't include cleaning the surfaces before spraying.

 I've got a Martin uke that I was working on this last week that had and "over spray". I was able to use a razor blade to get under the edges of the finish and peel it off like scotch tape (easier than scotch tape). The original finish doesn't look too bad... at least on what's left of the instrument. It's missing about 4/5 of the back and 2/3 of one side but I'm sure the finished looked pretty good under the "overspray" on those parts too. Now it looks like I have a Martin Uke shaped club with pretty good original finish. Good thing I didn't pay very much for  it.