Take your pick!!!

[onewilyfool]

Have you ever played with a true tortise pick made from tortise shell?.....I think they are against the law...but just wondering if you guys ever had one. By the way, I usually don't use a pick when I play, but yesterday pulled out a lot of old picks I've had over the years...and tried them out. I've got picks from guitar shows, from strings and things, from just strings...etc, etc. Just collected over the years...I was AMAZED at the different sounds that came out of the guitar based on which pick I was using. Some were clearly good for leads, some for strumming, some pretty good fpr both. Some KILLED the sound of the guitar, some made the bass sound good, some made the trebles sing...it was just amazing!! Just noticing.....

[EuroAussie]

A pick is the single biggest element afer your hands that will influence your tone, hands down.

[BigKahune]

.

Way back they weren't hard to find. I like them because they had very little of that harsh "zip" sound you get from plastic at certain angles.

 

My weapon of choice - Dunlop Tortex .73mm

 

I use a couple others on occasion, but the Tortex has been my favorite for a number of years now. Those triangle are easier to hold onto as I inch into senior territory. B)

 

[Buc McMaster]

Have you ever played with a true tortise pick made from tortise shell?.....I think they are against the law...but just wondering if you guys ever had one.

 

 

Yes, I have perhaps 4 or 5 real tortoise shell picks left in my pick box. One was given to me by a good friend maybe 20 years ago now, and the rest I made from tortoise peeled from the outside of an old jewelry box bought at a yard sale. One is quite thick and inflexible with rounded edges, the rest are on the thin side, a little pointy, but still with very little flex. Thye do indeed have a feel on the string like nothing else and, to my ear, produce a clarity of tone that is unique to the material.

 

And yes, it is illegal to buy, sell or transport out of the country tortoise shell without permits. It is NOT illegal to possess tortoise IF you can prove that it was procured prior to the CITES laws that made it illegal. Trick is, how do you prove that? You can still legally buy tortoise encrusted items here and there from antique dealers and the like that have documentation for their pieces. Here's a particularly fine collection of old tortoise pieces, some quite expensive.

[meanstreak]

what is the process for taking a shell and making it into a pick? I have a...uh...friend from out of state, pretty far away. John is his name, not sure about the last name, don't know his phone number either. Anyway this friend of mine has a full size tortoise shell his father may or may not have procured from Mexico many years ago, like 1973 or so. Anyone know the process for turning a bit of it into a guitar pick?

[Buc McMaster]

what is the process for taking a shell and making it into a pick? I have a...uh...friend from out of state, pretty far away. John is his name, not sure about the last name, don't know his phone number either. Anyway this friend of mine has a full size tortoise shell his father may or may not have procured from Mexico many years ago, like 1973 or so. Anyone know the process for turning a bit of it into a guitar pick?

 

Hmmm. Good question. It's the shell of saltwater turtles (green sea turtle, leatherbacks?) that jewelry, combs and guitar picks are made from.....very large shells with lots of "flat" space. I suppose there's some process makers used to flatten these shells out for use on large surfaces, like boxes. Perhaps it was heated and pressed, I dunno. The pieces I peeled off the boxes I found were already flattened and about 4" x 6" (top of the boxes) with smaller pieces from the sides. It was just a matter of rough cutting the shape I wanted with a small saw then shaping it further with sandpaper. It sands quite well and is easy to shape. I think there's a difference in the structure of the shell in terrestrial turtles that make their shells unsuitable for such uses. It's not as pretty, either.

[larryp58]

.

Way back they weren't hard to find. I like them because they had very little of that harsh "zip" sound you get from plastic at certain angles.

 

My weapon of choice - Dunlop Tortex .73mm

 

I use a couple others on occasion, but the Tortex has been my favorite for a number of years now. Those triangle are easier to hold onto as I inch into senior territory. B)

 

 

 

I'm with ya, BK!

[EuroAussie]

Yep, i have recently 'graduated' to this pick also and now use it on all my guitars except the CW.

 

On that one i still use the .60mm Tortex to get a lush sound that work fantastically on the CW.

 

 

.

Way back they weren't hard to find. I like them because they had very little of that harsh "zip" sound you get from plastic at certain angles.

 

My weapon of choice - Dunlop Tortex .73mm

 

I use a couple others on occasion, but the Tortex has been my favorite for a number of years now. Those triangle are easier to hold onto as I inch into senior territory. B)

 

[ChrisA83]

what is the process for taking a shell and making it into a pick? I have a...uh...friend from out of state, pretty far away. John is his name, not sure about the last name, don't know his phone number either. Anyway this friend of mine has a full size tortoise shell his father may or may not have procured from Mexico many years ago, like 1973 or so. Anyone know the process for turning a bit of it into a guitar pick?

 

Isn't it still illegal to make picks out of 'legal' tortoise shell?

I thought I read that somewhere - so like what Buc did would be considered illegal (converting old tortoise shell object into a pick). Not passing judgement by the way.

[Buc McMaster]

Isn't it still illegal to make picks out of 'legal' tortoise shell?

I thought I read that somewhere - so like what Buc did would be considered illegal (converting old tortoise shell object into a pick). Not passing judgement by the way.

 

Technically speaking, yes......my possession of these little pieces of tortoise is punishable offense in the eyes of the CITES laws. Bought the little boxes at a flea market/yard sale thing in Missouri long, long ago and there was no documentation with them stating when the shell had been harvested, nor were there any permits involved.....it was just stuff at a flea market. The act of buying and/or selling banned materials are what these laws are concerned with, and without proper permits, both the buyer and the seller are in hot water. I suspect that I could be prosecuted if the powers that be decided to hunt me down and get me.

Tortoise Pick Legal Concerns

 

So no, I won't sell you one of mine!

[devellis]

You can't use just any turtle shell to make the material used for picks. It's the hawksbill sea turtle that was the source of all those personal grooming accessories and flatpicks of yore. As I understand it, the manufacturing process is fairly complicated. Commercial manufacturers had steel presses that squashed the heated material between metal plates. Heat and pressure are necessary. It's not just a matter of cutting to shape and then trimming with a file. Layers of the material have to bond under heat and pressure.

 

I've played with real "tortoise" picks and actually liked them a lot. Part of their appeal is that they sort of adhere to your hand. They're not sticky, but they really stay put. Yet, they glide off of the strings very nicely and have a nice clear tone. Having said all that, I've found synthetic picks that have enough of those virtues to be excellent substitutes. I really like 2mm Dunlop 500 picks. I can hear a difference between those and "tortoise," but I wouldn't say one is actually better than the other, just different. And given the restrictions and ecological concerns around "tortoise," I'm happy to forgo the natural stuff and choose from among the various synthetics that are available.

[Madman_Greg]

Another thing to try

 

if you have a couple of thin picks. You can tape them together across the part you hold leaving the picking end free and untaped and you will get a pseudo 12 string affect with the two picks

[Alex_78]

 

I use this one,mini stubby 3 mm. I think that most of them will find this choice unusual, but I've been using just this pick for the last 15 years and it never failed me.

 

Now I'm experimenting with these:

 

 

A friend of mine developed and patended it: they are larger than the stubby, they produce a lot of volume when you strum an acoustic, but when you play lead they tend to be noisy...