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I Forge Iron

Copper guitar picks


tmy9966

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OK now, in my opinion, the first fix is in:

20160526_110604.jpg

On the Win 30-30, right out of the gate, split open and crudely flattened, we have  ~.005"  thickness at the mouth and tapering up to  ~.030 at the base. VERY PLEASANTLY SPRINGY. Indeed one can make one's own music not unlike what ones gets from an Israelite Harp.

I would imagine that that sound generated by the plectrum itself would feed back nicely from the soundbox of an acoustic.

PM a mailing address if anyone wants some. My 30-30 has become quite expensive to fire, but I have plenty of found NATO brass with a nice desert patina.

Robert Taylor

Edited by Anachronist58
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Cool I'll check into that site. Expensive from what i saw. Anyway, the size like I said, they put on their picks ".005" Not sure what that means. .005 Mil? Maybe who knows.  I have to get a measurement tool& size the one I have  to see if they mean ".005 mil" I have no idea what size the pick is for sure, the company said they can't give that information out.  Turning into a major project just a simple guitar pick

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Hey thanks, It would be great to get some of these picks pressed, I saw that site u mentioned. was 95$ for big roll of .005 mil. Now if that's the same material & thickness of mine I'd be happy. I should ask them for a scrap sample & match it to what I have to verify.  Not sure if they'll do that but I'll try. We should start a copper pick company up haha. Not sure if there is demand for them tho. Might only be  a handful of people who would want them. There are other companies already out doing the copper & metal pick thing. but they lack the variety of sizes

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What a confusing but yet fascinating world we live in. 

I have only heard and used "thou" to describe thousandths of an inch.

"mil" is in the Oxford English dictionary meaning thousandth of an inch (derived from the Latin millesimum=thousandth)  but I have not noticed anybody in metalworking using it over here. Maybe I just hobnob with Old Norse, Saxon and High German descended metalworkers (thúsund, thüsandig and düsunt) rather than those of mediterranean origins. :)

If anyone said "5 mil'" over here, they would be meaning 5 millimetres, which would be written 5mm. Especially true since our metrication in the nineteen seventies.

I was also taught to write a zero preceding the decimal point to make it clear when writing sub whole number dimensions hence 0.5" or 0.005" I am not sure whether that is an engineering or mathematical convention.

Alan

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CORRECTION: .005 mils is five millionths of an inch.  I was under the sink in abject agony when I posted the above error - that's my story.

Five mils is five thousandths of an inch. That's what you want.

As for the pick company, I will ask my eldest brother, the professional musician. If we are lucky, someone else already has taken on THAT headache.

Robert Taylor

 

Edited by Anachronist58
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tmy - I use this stuff every day, and at the job, we don't all speak a unified technical language.

Alan Evans - the program which generates our tooling control documents applies leading zeroes by default. Machinists, programmers, and mechanical engineers here in the States seem not to use leading zeroes in written communication: but now I think I'll apply closer scrutiny.......

In the Army, the compass rose on certain equipment was divided into 1000 mils in azimuth.

Two of my electronic engineer brothers use the term 'mil' in lieu of 'thousandth'. In fact, if one were to order Capton tape, the thickness would be delineated in 'mils'.

And then of course, we say "zero comma, zero five milimeters" :rolleyes:.

Robert

 

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...and then there is microns...

As this thread has a musical thread running through it...

Have you ever seen the documentary film about a British rock band called Spinal Tap when they were touring the 'states. At one point they ordered a full size model of a Stonehenge Arch as a stage prop...and due to a misunderstanding over dimensions it appeared as 24 inches high instead of 24 feet.

If you haven't seen it yet, I warn you it is very loud, because their amplifier volume controls go up to 11.

Alan

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That film is on my list - thanks for the peek. Ah, the micron:  A confusing conversational concept. We all (in popular culture) think of it as the smallest of the small, when in fact there are 393.7 millionths of an inch to each micron making it a rather large entity. Oh joy.

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OK, this is the real deal. I was told that one of my brothers was selling this for five dollars per inch, but not sure. This is bonified spring tempered copper, .007" thick.

When you find exactly what you are looking for, it is going to be expensive. My brother up here in Goleta will try to source it for us if can find the spare time.

If you are going to lay out the coin, be sure you are getting "sping tempered".

You'd best get busy smashing pennies in the meantime.

Robert Taylor

20160604_145907.jpg

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  • 2 months later...

Hard springy steel at that thickness is going to behave like a knife edge, even if fully radiused and highly polished.

The E and A (high frequency end) are usually "silvered" steel, while the remaining strings above are steel cores wound in various alloys of bronze. the bronze would probably hold up better than the bare steel.

A professional musician whom I know, uses one set of strings per session.  I think that the high E string would let us know pretty quick if the steel pick is trick or just too sick.

In the meantime, I have received a pretty good size portion of ~.007"  half-hard BeCu. The technical expert who gave it to me said that the alloyed nature of the material renders the beryllium "safe", even under abrasion.

I don't presently have time to proof any of this out, but if anyone desires a small free sample of BeCu, I will be happy to mail it off.

Robert Taylor

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18 minutes ago, Anachronist58 said:

A professional musician whom I know, uses one set of strings per session. 

My big indulgence when I was playing a lot was a new set of Gibson Extra Light strings every week...I just loved the jangle! Poor old guitar has had the same set on for forty years now :(

Alan

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  • 2 years later...

Greetings, scott7, welcome to the Forum!

You may have read this already, but if you have not:

This helps make for a smoother forum experience. Your reference to ebay brought me right to the material.  Thank you for posting that information.  I have only produced that which I have originally posted in this thread, although I am no less interested.

Hmmm..... $19 & $29 each.... I hope I find the time to look further into this....

Welcome Aboard,

Robert Taylor

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