Useful tips, and how to do it....

Fake Fingernail Tip

 (received from Arkansas Red-Ozark Troubadour)
If you are going to try the "fake fingernail idea" let me give a few pointers to save you some headaches.

  • 1. Go to Wal-Mart or some craft store and get some of those tiny spring clothes pins. They are both wooden and plastic. The plastic works best for me.
  • 2. If you have a high power hair dryer or a heat gun that will help.
  • 3. Cut off about 1/4" of the pick's tongue.
  • 4. Hold the nail on the pick at the ring with one or two tiny clothes pins.
  • 5. Carefully, apply heat and watch the nail conform to the shape of the pick.
  • 6. Let cool. for about five minutes.
  • 7. With medium grit sandpaper, or a file rough up the pick surface. This will give you a good glue surface. Also rubbing a little lacquer thinner on the pick helps too.
  • 8. Apply epoxy glue (I use the five minute Devcon) with a toothpick.
  • 9. Clamp the nail to the pick with the little clothes pins.It may take three or four. Glue will ooze out. This is good. Leave it to dry overnight. Even though it is five minute epoxy it doesn't set that hard in five minutes.
  • 10. When it is dry take a nail board (one usually comes with the nails.), and shape the nail to the pick. I usually make the sides flush with the metal and leave about 1/16" nail sticking out from the pick tongue. This length varies with each player. Use your own judgement. What works for me may not be your cup of tea.
  • 11. After nail is shaped apply a nice coat of "Sally Hansen's Hard As Nails". In fact I apply about three coats. Letting each coat dry in between.

    These picks may not work for everybody. I use the Dunlop .025 metal fingerpick. In fact I use two. One on the index and one on the middle. Nothing on the thumb. I hope this helps someone out there who, like me doesn't have strong fingernails and likes to frail banjo. Good Luck-

    Arkansas Red would love to hear from anyone who knew Stringbean or Grandpa Jones......if you knew any of these fine Old Time players...or any good stories about them....drop Arkansas Red an E-mail..........he would love to hear from ya'...send him an E-mail anyway...hes a nice guy..

    click here to : E-Mail Arkansas Red

    ( my thanx to Arkansas Red-Ozark Troubadour for this tip, if anyone has any more send me them ill post em' here )



  • Heres an alternative method E-Mailed to me by Steve Colby

    I read about the "whittling" down the middle fingernail and I have an alternative solution. It came from fooling around with "Alaska Piks". In discussions with this company I had him make me some "backward" Alaska Piks without the grooves cut in.

    To do this simply buy some 5/8" clear plastic pipe/tube from an aquarium store and with a mitre box cut sections to fit over your first knuckle - cut one end @ 45 degrees and the other end square. Then with wire snips "free up" the tube by making a lateral cut so the tube is not rigid. Finally snip the edges of the lateral cut to smooth the surface next to the finger. Sand off residue and play away. I usually make these in large batches at one time. The sound is more fingernail realistic than metal.



    (Thanx Steve)

    Tailpiece Tip.

     (received from Arkansas Red-Ozark Troubadour)

    Cut some tiny pieces of tubing from electrical wire about a half inch long and put it down over the End Wrapping of the string, this prevents the back wound part of the string on non-crenniled (wrapped) strings...cutting a groove into your Tailpiece... as shown below....

    (Thanks Red)


    Getting a better Frailing Sound.
    An idea on getting a nice thumpy sound from a mylar or better yet fibreskin head. Some duct tape strip(s) on the "under neath" side - under the bridge, give a thickness closer to real skin and help to deaden the ring. This is not my idea, I stole it from another page a few years ago but it works!


    Fingerpick Tip.

    On finger picks, if you're too lazy (like me) to build a cool pick like the other one on your homepage. Take a regular nylon pick and file it back until it's just long enough to reach comfortably past your real nail back to a point comfortably INFRONT of your finger joint, i.e. this thing is going to move the same way as the first joint of your finger ONLY. It seems to me the heavier thickness of the pick actually sounds better than a bare nail plus you can't tell it's there if you get it filed short enough.

    (thanx to Don Gothard for the tips)