Forum - Banjo Ben Clark

Dremel tool buff your pick

If you have one go to arbor freight and buy up some small buffing wheels and use a light rouge on it and buff the ends of the picks out it will make the paying some better I tried it with cheap picks and they really slide off the strings nice and it makes them a tad louder and no scraping sounds . The Buffalo horn pick I had even slid off nice and easy and sounded good ,. The small Dremel tool is a good thing to use but go it with the low speed or you will burn the pick if you don’t . use caution as always. and the direction of the wheel turn has to be right or it will walk . make sure the wheel is turning away from the inside of the pick toward the edge if it is not it will walk into the edge and grab it away from you . Happy picking all .

Thanks Welder, I’ll give it a shot.

I guess this can be administered on banjo picks as well. I’m not sure I see it being effective on the finger picks, but possibly the thumb pick?

Please use caution on the direction of the buffing wheel as it will grab it right out of your fingers I recommend using a small vise to hold the pick and use the low speed as it will eat into the pick at higher speeds . I makes even the cheap ones play well I just bought a pack of the larger tri shaped Clayton picks and they feel like they have sand paper on them . but after buffing them the pick glides off the strings so with a minimal effort I have 12 slick picks well eleven as I burnt one LOL . You live and try and learn . I also recommend that you use very light pressure at the slow speed it will buff them well . so for 4 bucks and some effort, I turned 11 into slick picks . I still am waiting on Gustafson to market their new finger picks, I really think the pick will revolutionize the finger picking tools for banjo and guitar. I might make some with heavy duty finger cots and see if they really work as well as they say but it is a good thing I believe that these picks could be out on the market this year.