The Cardboard Guitar

For some silly reason, I decided to take a look through the local Good Will.  What I found was a child sized guitar made out of hard cardboard.  So it is my new project, and my first re-finishing project.  They sold it to me for $2.00.  Just 2 bucks.

The front of the guitar.  The dots were added at the Good Will store.  A little bit of the fret board is missing.  I figure that with an Exacto blade, that can be made to look much better.

The back side of the guitar.  You can tell that it is cardboard here.  And that the fretboard is lifting.

The headstock.  The tuner for the 6th string is missing.  Had I known, I might have gotten for $1 instead of $2.  So I will tune it to an open G instead.

Where the neck meets the body, and the fretboard meets them both.  Some Elmers glue and a light clamp should cure the lifting.  I am not sure about the neck/body joint.  The neck is glued in place fairly solidly and I do not know if I want to mess with it.  Or if I need to.

The nut is a bit high.  I am not sure if the nut and bridge are original.   From their lack of paint or finish, I would think not.  But it is set up for slide.

The bridge is high also.  I suspect that the tail piece also acted as the bridge, the original nut was lost, and this is the result.  I may try and shave down the nut and remove the wooden bridge

I removed the strings and decided to reset the fretboard first.  I pulled the fretboard up a bit and used a toothpick to spread the glue.  Then some clamps and wood spacers to provide the brute force.

**********************************************

It's done.  The action is impossibly high, but for a 3 year old, who cares.   I strung it with Dean Markley nylon strings, ball end.  They work just fine.   It sounds remarkably like a uke, though.