Making Your Own Picks

[Robin, Wales]

I've made picks out of a variety of materials but today was the first time I'd tried to shape up my own pick in Vespel. For those pick geeks out there, it is a very easy material to work with. It cuts, files and polishes easily and predictably. I got my material via Scott Memmer and his ad is in the marketplace section of AGF. It is not a cheap material by any means but now I've cut the piece I have into blanks and it has worked out at $10 per blank.

The one I have made is a 1.5mm thick (60 thou") small triangle with speed bevels. It plays fast and clean

I think that on my Seagull S6 I still prefer the tone of the casein picks I make over Vespel, although this one I've just made is a little darker and more rounded in tone than the BC TP-1R 50 I have.

[DesertTwang]

Wow. Gorgeous. Nice work on the speed bevels, too.

[Matt G]

Your Vespel pick looks great - I wouldn't have known it was home-made if you hadn't said so.

Where do you get your casein to make casein picks?

Matt

[Silly Moustache]

Hi Robin, did you cut the bevels in a similar way to this?

[Malcolm Kindnes]

Well done Robin, that looks great. I mostly play fingerstyle but when I use a flatpick I alternate between Blue Chip, casein and Wegen.

[Robin, Wales]

Originally Posted by Matt G

Your Vespel pick looks great - I wouldn't have known it was home-made if you hadn't said so.

Where do you get your casein to make casein picks?

Matt

Hi Matt - I buy casein off Ebay in the UK or through Rothco and Frost in the UK.

Andy - I tend to use a small flat file to put on a speed bevel (I can see what's going on as I'm filing the top rather than underside of a pick) and then polish with wet and dry micromesh 800 up to 7000. And finish with the German wadding 'Never Dull'.

[Kyle76]

Nice work! Hard to believe that at Scott’s closeout vespel prce it’s still $10 per pick.

[Robin, Wales]

Originally Posted by Kyle76

Nice work! Hard to believe that at Scott’s closeout vespel prce it’s still $10 per pick.

I tried to buy some Vespel last year direct from the DuPont office in the UK and calculated that it would cost me over $50 a pick!!! So $10 to get exactly the pick shapes I want is a bargain!

[Charmed Life Picks]

Originally Posted by Kyle76

Nice work! Hard to believe that at Scott’s closeout vespel prce it’s still $10 per pick.

Kyle, the stuff is flipping absurd. I believe I'm correct in saying that, per square inch or millimeter, is the most expensive plastic on the planet. And check it out: That price is for the rod form. The sheet stock (known as plate in the plastics biz) the cost is -- hold your breath -- for a square 10" x 10" = $1100.00.

I hope this gives you folks renewed respect for Blue Chip. They walk a very fine tightrope to make that whole operation work, with razor-thin margins and little room for error. In a way, it's almost a relief to be out of the Vespel business for now. We'd love to be back in, but boy oh boy do you pucker up every time you slice a piece of this stuff.

Thanks, Robin. Please continue to be safe and healthy across the pond there.

And the same to all of you,
Scott Memmer

[MakingMusic]

Originally Posted by Charmed Life Picks

for a square 10" x 10" = $1100.00.

Wow! At those prices, the Vespel business is not sustainable, Scott. Time to be on the sidelines. I had no idea.

[H165]

You might like Catalin as a pick material. I use old poker chips to make mine.

[Charmed Life Picks]

To combine responses:

Making Music: RE: Cost of Vespel.
It's even worse than you think. That 10" x 10 " square is 1/4" thick. That's the thinnest DuPont makes it. So if you lay it flat and CNC it, you then have to take those pick shapes (1/4" thick) and somehow slice them three or four times. It's impossible. So for those who say "BC is ripping you off," uh, no. And I'm the only other person who's been there, so I can that from the front lines.

H165:
On the Catalin: I'm all over it. In fact I have more than 100 Catalin chips on the shelf right now. However, I doubt I'll be able to play with it till the fall. I've heard these reports. Tonally, would you put it up there with Casein? Or what would you compare it to?

Thanks to the two of you,

Scott

[H165]

On the Catalin: ..... Tonally, would you put it up there with Casein? Or what would you compare it to?

Disclaimers : I like to tinker with stuff. I am a B level guitar player. I used to have good hearing. I used to work in a tool and die shop. I used to work in a pattern shop.

I tried tons of materials to replace T/S. I first tried Catalin based upon Rockwell hardness testing against T/S. It's close. It also "feels" like T/S. Further, when T/S and Catalin are tossed onto a wood surface, they sound about the same. After about a million tries (thickness, bevel, and polish variations), I could not distinguish Catalin from hawksbill tortoise shell with my playing style. My Catalin picks that emulate T/S are slightly (maybe .004) thicker than the T/S picks I used as benchmarks.

My experiments ended there, so I have no basis to compare with Casein.

There is a level at which picks are not better or worse to me, just different. There was a little science involved (hardness), but I don't know of any controlled documented experiments where pick material is the ONLY variable, and delivered audio signal is X. I'm strictly in anecdotal and "personal preference" mode on this subject.