Buffing your picks?

[Runepune]

Another pick thread!

Many may find it silly, but I can't live without polishing my picks when they start getting scratchy BlueChip, Wegen, and other dense picks are very durable, but they still wear and get rougher.

In addition to the wearing, new picks usually have a slightly sharper bevel edge than I prefer. A minute with polishing papers fixes that.

Apart from the sound, the feel of playing with a slick pick is so much better. Me thinks so, at least.

Sooo...I highly recommend having some 3M flexible polishing papers laying around! (Also good for polishing frets etc.)

[sgosnell]

IME picks generally get smoother as they wear, not rougher. My preferred way to buff a new pick, if I think it needs it, is to use a rug or carpet. I rub the pick briskly across an area of short nap, both directions, getting all around the point of the pick. That seems to usually do the job for me. That gets the edges smoother than polishing papers, and it's cheap. I've been doing this for years.

[citizenk74]

I habitually re-shape my picks to my desired contours and polish them with red oak, a couple of pebbles, and bits of leather and such. It's as much a meditative practice as it is some vital need. No-one will hear a difference, but I will feel it.

[Runepune]

IME picks generally get smoother as they wear, not rougher. My preferred way to buff a new pick, if I think it needs it, is to use a rug or carpet. I rub the pick briskly across an area of short nap, both directions, getting all around the point of the pick. That seems to usually do the job for me. That gets the edges smoother than polishing papers, and it's cheap. I've been doing this for years.

You must be using picks other than the two brands I mentioned then? They both wear in pretty much the same way. Or maybe you pick with a very light touch? I dig in quite a bit on acoustic, which probably is where most of the wear comes from.

These polishing papers are really like cloth. There's no way to get the pick smoother than they get from them The finest one is 22000, but see no point in going beyond 8000 from my experience. I really can't feel the grit at all, it just feels like cloth. Rug/carpet probably works fine for the final buffing, but I need the 400-600 to even it out first.

[sgosnell]

I have 8 or so Blue Chip picks, but I've never tried a Wegen. The Blue Chips that I have all become smoother, and the sound becomes thicker, even less treble, as they wear, and they wear very slowly. I actually prefer the sound of newer picks. YMMV.

[rpjazzguitar]

I carry a sheet of 2000 wet/dry in my guitar case. I use it occasionally on Golden Gate mandolin picks.

They get pitted so that I can feel unevenness with a fingernail. I'll sand that out. I have some coarser paper that I use sometimes.

Warren Nunes used to use the carpet method.

[whiskey02]

Round wound strings impart far more "edge damage" than flats. I try to alter my technique a little on the lower strings so as to not meet the string at too sharp of an angle, holding the pick, while not flat on the string, closer to flat rather than sharply "Benson" angled. You can buy a multi sided rough to fine polish fingernail buffer (in the same section along with files & emory boards). When I get one sounding raspy on the unwound trebles I just set it aside and grab a new one then when I'm watching tv with my wife I quietly smooth out the scratches along the edges.

Something like this:
Robot or human?
though I've done just as well with just 4 sides.

[Gabor]

thx for you all, now I know I am not crazy and not alone :-)

However my experience are opposite, I tried to make smooth a Dunlop Jazz III Petrucci (not reshape, just smooth) and its sound instantly went dead. I even planned a demo video on the effect titled "How to ruin your pick" but it fell victim to procrastination...

[sgosnell]

I've tried reshaping lots of picks, and smoothing/polishing standard ones. In every case (so far) the tone went dull and too dark. Some people prefer that sound, but I don't.

[Runepune]

I've tried reshaping lots of picks, and smoothing/polishing standard ones. In every case (so far) the tone went dull and too dark. Some people prefer that sound, but I don't.

Yeah, if you smoothen the edge it will produce less harmonics. You don't have to round it off though. You may as well sharpen it if that's your cup of tea.

I buff a couple of tip shapes myself. The sharper one gives more top end and bite, and the rounder one is for thick and warm (especially on acoustic).

[sgosnell]

I've made the point sharper, rounder, thinner, all sorts of modifications, and in every case they sounded duller, never brighter. I've also made my own picks, of various shapes, from old CDs, wood, and other materials. While cheap, it's just more work than it's worth. I think I may have overdone the smoothness on all of them, or perhaps it's just my poor workmanship, I don't know. All I know for sure is that Blue Chip picks are the best I've tried, but I still use some others, depending on amp, guitar, and the alignment of the stars. I'm done modifying and making my own, though.