first thing you need is a few items:
1. pick blanks (or your cut ones)
2. sandpaper 320 grit, 400 grit (waterproof)
3. 2 separate cups of water
4. rag(cotton or microfibre)
optional - dremal tool with buffing wheel and buffing agent
p.s. if your from canada canadian tire is selling dremal tool for 13 bucks this week!!!
like I said this is the cheap way. this will work on the whole pick if you want to. but if you make your picks from hacksaw blades you need to remove the teeth so you dont wreck your sandpaper.
once you get your pick to the rough stage of the shape you want from your pencil marks(assuming you draw your pattern on) you are now ready to get it to the final stages of prep so you can do the fine detail work, since the paint and pencil marks will now be a obstruction( the paint burrs on the edges so its hard to see your shape)
tear 1/4 of the 320 grit sandpaper off( you can start with a lower grit).
wet it and place on a smooth raised surface or close to an edge of a table if your only doing the pick not handle
your first goal in this step is to remove the paint from the surface. work the metal in a figure 8 motion( I will explain more later why) keeping the paper wet using the clean water, and using the other water for the pick with the tiny metal filelings on it,
once the paint is removed parts of the metal will become shiny and might have dark spots... the dark spots are low parts of the metal if you have this on the pick part you might want to remove these, which means you need to sand more..once you get the majority of it off.
you can now finish working on the pick itself doing the fine detail work needed to make the pick exactly how you want it, using whatever tools you have available.
Once your satified with the pick, you can now sand it with the 400 wetpaper.
Again tear 1/4 the 400 grit and wet it. this time sand in a back and forth movement. keeping the paper wet using the clean water, and using the other water for the pick with the tiny metal filelings on it
THE REASON WHY IS SO YOU CAN TELL WHERE YOU NEED TO SAND THE METAL MORE BASED ON THE SCRATCH MARKS, this will help know when you have sanded enough with this grit.
DONT FORGET TO SAND THE BOTTOM EDGE IN A BACK AND FORTH MOTION
use the rag to mop up any excess waterand to wipe the pick off so you have less metal fileling going on the paper
once your satisfied with this. your pick with be very smooth. the feel with be totally different the what you were used to. but if your pick design is done very well the pin feedback will be better. now if you want a smoother finish just use the dremel tool with the buffing wheel and there you go. just remember to put on the agent at a slow speed of it wont stick to the wheel
I can possibly put up some pics of the stages of this for people but there might be a few days before i can do it.
I hope that this helps everyone with there homemade picks... if you try this out. please respond threw this post so if needed i can fine tune this..
again thank you all for the info you have posted and i hope my info helps you as much as yours have
KSPEC
