Glued-on Fingerpicks Made From Lexan Plastic
(A.K.A. "Polycarbonate Sheet")
Lexan is another name for polycarbonate plastic. Lexan is clear and hard. Lexan is so hard that consumer eyeglasses with plastic lenses are made of polycarbonate plastic. Fortunately, the lexan sheeting used for "guitar fingernails" is thin enough to be flexible and easily cut with scissors.
Selecting the right size lexan...
Lexan is commonly available. Lexan can be found online from various suppliers, hobby stores, etc. (See materials page for info on tools/materials.)
You should be able to find a retail supplier offering an approximately 8" x 11" for under $5 USD. (All the basic tools/materials are also shown together and can be individually purchased here. The standard thicknesses of thin lexan sheeting thin enough for this purpose are .020" and .030". The .020" lexan sheet is only slightly thicker than a natural fingernail.
The .030" size is maybe a little *too* thick, but that's subjective. Your style might benefit from a thicker pick, and you might not mind the slightly denser feel. The .030" gauge is even more durable than the .020" and will produce a heavier/softer sound when plucking.
Whatever the thickness of lexan you use (.020" or .030"), one 8" x 11" sheet of lexan lasts a long time (makes dozens and dozens of nails). If you find .020" too thin and .030" too thick you can 'plane down' the .030" plastic by filing or grinding it thinner while on the nail, or even rubbing a flat piece of .030" lexan over a flat piece of sandpaper on a flat surface will thin it down (but ruin transparency unless you can buff it).
Lexan is easy to work with...
Fortunately .020" - .030" lexan is very thin and quite easy to cut with scissors and file down with emery boards. And superglue dries fast. It's all pretty easy going. If you're efficient about it, you can get a set of 3 or 4 lexan fingerpicks cut out, glued on, and shaped in about 15 minutes or so. (That is after you've created a set or two and know what it's about). Once the picks are on, just a few minutes here and there to maintain, for example if a lexan nail comes loose. You may also spend some time filing the shape of the lexan nail to make it play smooth for your style.
Because lexan is thicker than ping-pong balls, lexan takes a little more work with the emery board to smooth down onto the nail. See the section below on finishing the nail for more info.
Of course, once you've got a lexan nail shaped and fited as you like it, if you knock it off or it comes loose, you can just glue it back on again, and you're ready to play again in just a few minutes. And if you lose one you can just make another in just a few minutes. You can keep a plastic bag with a bunch of cut out pre-arched lexan pieces ready to glue right own onto the nail and shape. That makes replacement really fast.
Is it really worth the trouble?
Obviously there is some effort involved, even though it's pretty easy once you get the hang of it. Overall, the "Bang for your buck" is pretty good. Once you have the supplies on hand, you're in business for good fingerpicking for a long time. And if you're really efficient by cutting out a bunch of pieces of lexan and arching them in advance, then you can just maintain the gig on and on with minimal effort. Obviously you get better at getting the shape, look and sound that you like with a little experience. You find your preferred tools and materials.
The nails last about a week or two - more or less before they're knocked off, depending on how well you glue them on and how careful you are to guard them when exposing them to other activities. Sometimes you'll just glue them back on, but occasionally you may lose one. And if you play a lot, to have perfect fingerpicks on your fingers at all times, uninterrupted is a big win.
It helps to avoid knocking them into things. Letting the glued-on lexan guitar fingerpicks stick out too far grow out with your nail so too long makes them more vulnerable to getting knocked off when you're doing other things. Every few days or so, depending on how fast your nails grow, you may want to use an emery board to grind down some of the lexan that's grown out.
Anyway, you can definitely get a lot of playing in from the time you first put on a lexan nail until the time you need to replace it.
Shaping and Fitting Lexan to the Fingernail
The picture above is a small piece of .020 lexan sheet cut out with scissors and bent into an arch by making multiple small bends using needle-nosed pliers. The lexan sheet arrives perfectly smooth - the barely visible ridges shown above are where the small bends are made with the pliers.
1. Bend lexan piece into an arch shape with pliers
(Note: Bending is the way to go here because lexan does not
respond well to casual impromptu heating for thermoforming.
Without a closely-controlled environment, it will just contort.)
The easiest way to put arch into a strip of lexan, that approximately matches the arch of the fingernail, is use needle-nosed pliers.
Start by cutting a 1/4" tall strip of .020" or .030" lexan about 2" long to give you working room. With experience you can use a shorter piece, but 2" will help you grip the lexan strip while you make the bends with the pliers, and gives you more working area to get the right curve through experimentation.
You can cut it down to the width of the nail after you get an area with an arch that approximately matches the arch of the nail.
• Bend the lexan in closely spaced intervals with small subtle twists of needlenose pliers. Tiny bends of about 20º - 30º or so. Check it out over the nail as you go so you know how much curve to put in. Once it starts to match the nail, cut off the excess length so that it isn't wider than the nail.
• The bends are repeated across the strip. just make a tiny bend movement, then move the pliers about 1/32" or so on the lexan strip and give it another slight bend. A series of closely spaced slight bends will put a nice arch into the lexan strip.
You'll get the hang of arching lexan in no time at all, because it's easy to see by how much of a curve in the plastic you're getting if you bent it too much or too little. Really shouldn't need to take more than 15 to 30 seconds to get one piece arched by adding the bends, after you've learned how by making one or two.
The picture above is the same piece of lexan plastic placed over a
fingernail (but not glued down yet), ready for final positioning and gluing.
The one in the picture needs to be slid about 1/16" up (e.g. away from cuticle
toward the fingertip) before gluing it in place, clipping off the top corners to round it, and filing it down into final shape.
2. Glue on the Arched Lexan Piece...
Use only enough glue necessary for it to fully spread underneath the lexan where it contacts the nail. A little gap-filling cyanoacrylate superglue ( slang: "thick CA") goes a long way. One thin line (about 1/16") of glue across the nail, about 1/16" down from the top of the nail should be enough to spread under the lexan when the lexan is pressed down onto the nail.
Get the lexan seated on the nail quickly and accurately as possible before the glue starts to set. Superglue sets almost immediately. Hold the lexan in place for a couple of minutes until glue begins to cure. However, the glue will probably seem fully cured for minutes before it is really stable enough to be snipped with nail clippers and emery-boarded . You can hold the nail on with tweezers, tape or even another finger.
Give it about 5-10 minutes to set, before putting any pressure on the lexan or start to file it. If you're using gap-filling superglue (cyanoacrylate) waiting 10 minutes is more likely to ensure the lexan will stay on while you work with it, but if you get a good fit and press the lexan down to the nail enough to squeeze out the excess glue, it can set quicker. You will get the hang of how to make everything go fast. The better the arch and fit, the easier for a good gluing job and strong attachment.
Super-glue (Tricks for handling):
If you use a little too much glue or get some on your fingers. For example, holding a lexan piece in place while it sets, and some excess glue sticks to your finger, it isn't isn't a big problem; just a trivial inconvenience. The amount of glue recommended in these instructions is very small, so it won't adhere much. Plus gap-filling super-glue is more 'tame' than the thinner "CA" glue commonly marketed as superglue.. You can easily pull apart the fingers without losing any skin. If you really feel the fingers are stuck together, don't panic, you can gradually work them apart without injuring yourself. Then you can get off the excess glue very quickly using the techniques below.
Superglue can be peeled off after little while, or, if you're in a hurry, you can even plane it off in seconds (explained below). The oils on the skin cause the superglue it to de-bond after awhile. After 20 minutes or an hour, you'll feel the glue starting to get edges that are lifting off the skin by which you you can peel the glue up, little-by-little over time. Washing with soap and warm water accelerates the de-bonding time significantly, allowing you to peel it off quicker. However there is a much faster way! By using knife or X-Acto blade *carefully* you can plane the super-glue off immediately once it's dry (i.e within seconds of it bonding!).
Planing the glue off with a blade is much faster than peeling it off with fingernails, because peeling it off with the fingernails can only be done in phases as the glue gradually debonds over time. But be careful when using a blade edge not to cut yourself. Just scrape the edge of the blade over the glue with the blade slightly angled toward the glue/skin interface, so it forms a superficial wedge-like action to attack the glue/skin margin, and flick the glue off with the blade. Several quick scrapes and the glue is off. That's it. Just like that.
Caution: Don't use the blade cross-wise in a cutting motion, obviously. The technique can be done safely and repeatedly, and the author has never cut a finger using X-Acto blade to remove glue in this way. HOWEVER, don't attempt this unless you understand how to not hurt yourself and are confident that you have the ability to avoid injury.
The closer the fit, the better...
If you arched and sized the plastic carefully you probably don't need to hold it in place after the initial part of the glue set-up. Otherwise you might have to hold the nail down for a few minutes to cure in order to prevent separations (unwanted gaps) between the lexan and the nail. Such gaps will obviously weaken the glue bond, and might be visually unwelcome as well.
Just be careful as possible, to minimize the clean-up and hassle.
 
3. Finish up the nail...
After the lexan sheet is glued down, the excess can be trimmed off with nail clippers, small diagonal cutters, or scissors. Upper edge of the nail (plucking edge) can be shaped into a curve to look like a fingernail, and bevelled with an emery board or file. Alaska™ picks use about a 45º angle for the bevel.
If you run a small line of gap-filling superglue along the bottom edge of the lexan nail (that is sitting on top of the nail forming a .020" 'cliff') as a filler, you can then use an emery-board or (optionally) use a rotary tool such as a 'nail drill to grind down that ridge to slope it onto the nail, like a shallow ramp so you can't tell where the fingernail joins the lexan. And that also helps keep the lexan guitar fingernail from coming loose.
You want to blend the lexan down onto the nail as smoothly as possible to avoid accidentally catching the lower ridge of the lexan on a string (i.e. to avoid accidentally plucking the string with back of your finger).
Smoothing down the top of the lexan to seamlessly ramp down onto the nail is harder work with an emery board than with an optional rotary tool, because it is a bit tricky to get the right angle to with an emery board and have a consistently fresh set of grit against the tiny lexan lower edge to take it down. But the author has done it many many times and continues to use an emery board, for all filing and grinding, for the time being.
Optionally, before you start playing, you can make the 'plucking edge' of the lexan fingernail smoother by polishing it on your pants. But fingerpicking smoothes the picks down pretty fast in any case, so it really isn't necessary.
Preserving Fingerpick Transparency:
It is possible, if very careful, to glue the lexan down without the turning cloudy as shown in the pictures,
Cloudiness is caused by glue being agitated or getting air in it while curing or sanded glue. If you set the nail on the glue, use a minimal layer that spreads
evenly across the whole lexan/nail contact area, press down the lexan to squeeze out excess glue and make sure it doesn't move while setting. Don't
get any excess glue on top of the lexan or between your finger and the lexan. Then you'll need to figure out a way to file down the lower edge of the
lexan to slope onto the nail so there isn't a ridge without sanding the clear surface of the lexan. You probably need a rotary tool to do that.
Practically speaking, however, most of the time, the ones the author makes look like the picture at the top of the page when done due to the plastic shifting while gluing, etc... because they don't really draw attention to them in real life. And the author isn't that concerned that they look perfect as long as they play perfectly.
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