How to Make Your Own Custom Guitar Picks

Sometimes you don't want to use the pink pick

If you're looking to spice up your sound on the guitar, consider changing the pick that you use to play. Learning how to make your own custom guitar picks will offer you a seemingly endless list of possible different sounds.

Things You'll Need

• Old credit card
• Store-bought plectrum (pick)
• Sheet of paper
• Pencil
• Marker
• Scissors
• Fine-grained sandpaper

Instructions

1. Choose the right material. Credit cards are great for making custom guitar picks, but feel free to experiment with things like cardboard boxes and thin planks of wood; in general, choose materials that are thin enough to cut.

2. Trace your store-bought pick onto a sheet of paper and cut it out.

3. Trace the shape of the paper onto your chosen material, and cut it out with the smoothest cuts you can manage using scissors or a utility knife. You don't want a pick with jagged edges.

4. Smooth the edges of your custom-cut picks with the sandpaper to prevent them from cracking or splitting during play.

5. Customize the shape of your new picks. Trim the edges of your custom picks to make a variety of styles out of the one pick shape you used to trace them.

Tips & Warnings

• The way you hold the pick will alter the sound it produces; in other words, you can get different sounds from one pick if you pluck the strings with a corner instead of a flat or rounded edge.

• You can color the picks with spray paint, or draw designs with markers; just refrain from using thick paints since it will flake off during use.

• Jagged-edged picks may damage thin strings.

References

• Cut Out and Keep: Guitar Picks

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish