Silver Thumbs - The making of our new sterling silver thumb pick

Silver Thumbs - The making of our new sterling silver thumb pick

To complete our new thumb pick collection, we are happy to list our sterling silver version of our latest thumb pick in Nici's Picks : niciart_sterling_silver_thumb_pick_2 Unlike our classic guitar picks which are pressed one at a time from the various metals using a handmade custom pancake die, these new thumb picks take handmade to entirely new dimension as they are sawed one at a time using a fine fret saw. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA While handmade guitar picks really hype up the crowd, the 52 tpi saw blade creates a rather rough edge that needs considerable filing by hand in order to actually be used for playing a guitar pick. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA We are always horrified by what passes as a guitar pick these days on Etsy. Many of the sellers are focused purely on aesthetics or just copying our designs rather than producing picks for playing. There's nothing wrong with novelty picks, but please call them novelty guitar picks and not "gifts for musicians." OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Our example pick was hand stamped with I plucking love u, however the picks can be ordered with any engraving/stamping with the only limitation being space available for those longer messages. Finally each pick is formed over a ring mandrel and tumbled to perfection in a vibratory tumbler with walnut shell to polish the surfaces. Unlike our flat guitar picks which require a quick push through our polishing wheel, the walnut shell actually finishes curved surfaces far better than any hand process. To be effective, the wheel has to hit the metal at exactly 90 degrees which is not really an option for finishing these thumb picks. Our next project this week is rolling out our guitar picks in bracelets, keychains, and necklaces from a small company called PickBandz. If you have a moment, check out their site. We met their reps at the summer NAMM in Nashville and fell in love with their product line. Many customers ask for guitar pick bracelets and bands in leather without realizing most of those leather products release tannins which tarnish metal picks. Even worse, the majority of the leather pick holders come from factories abroad where the leather tanning business has little oversight and is one dirty messy job with considerable environmental damage. After 4 weeks in a PickBandz bracelet, none of our test picks tarnished. I am totally sold on the idea and stoked to list them in our shop.
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