Yeah, I have thought I was lucky every time I have heard the composite stuff described. One of my daughters told me the fretboard was the best looking part of the bass. Naturally it's the only part I did not finish ;-)

I may try carefully removing a fret at the treble end to see how it goes. Right now it has tapewound strings on it, and I had planned to stick with them. At least to start with.

I'd like to preserve the fret lines once the frets come out if at all possibe. I have some natural colored plastic wood filler that csccdrI like pretty well for other things. Does it make sense to use it on this?