Question about nails

[Jo-Anne Park]

I don't know where to place a message like this on the board, but here goes...

I sheared off the nail on my middle finger to the quick the other day and it has completely put the kibosh on my playing for a while. It sounds like a song with no melody.

I decided to experiment with artificial nails. Just put them on today and went out to a jam and picked the rockers like Rose Ann, Teenscene, etc. Wow! I like these! I had planned to only keep them until my middle nail came back to length, but I may stay with them, they are so solid, so confidence-inducing.

I have no long term experience with them, however. What should I look out for? How should I maintain them? Is it wise to stay with them? Do you folks have experience? I hear they can develop fungal infections.

[cgprnd]

Hi Jo-Anne,

Doyle Dykes steered me toward acrylic nails 11 years ago when I questioned him about being able to perform on steel strings for several hours without breaking his nails. I have no problem with fungus. My biggest complaint is the lack
of flexibility. They are thick and don't bend and it's as if I'm playing with little pieces of stone protruding from my fingers.
I have 3 of them redone every 2 weeks or so.

Rande

[Jo-Anne Park]

The stiffness is what surprised me. I can really dig in. They have the same tonal quality and volume as the delrin thumbpick, so it's a nice match. Sometimes the thumbpick would overpower my real nails, but that's probably due to my inexperience. With the fake nails I can really drive the thumb and the fingers can keep up.

You have them redone every two weeks or so. What does that entail?

[cgprnd]

Hi Jo-Anne,

The little Viet-Namese lady at the nail shop just removes the old ones and "install" 3 new ones. For me the thickness interferes with my accuracy at high speed, such as for something like Chet's ending on "Blue Angel". It even sounds stiff and choppy, not to mention missing a few of the notes. I'm doing a lot of practicing with the metronome. I was anyway but I feel like this set me back somewhat, yet it's better than having my real ones breaking so often.

Rande

[Gary Smith]

I use the acrylic nails when I break a natural nail. I do it myself, with the kits you can get from a drug store.

You probably know what I mean, the powder in one jar, the liquid in another, you mix them into a paste.
the secret is to use the teflon dam they provide, it goes under the nail and you paint the sticky mess over the top of your natural nail and extend it out over the dam.

It looks awful at first.

Let it harden, then remove the dam, and trim the extension of the nail to you liking.

One other thing, before you install the mixture, clean you natural nail with acetone to remove all oils and provide a good base for the acrylic to stick to.

Just my remedy for a broken nail, as chet would say, "it should be yours too".

[Nils]

I've been using acrylic nails for about ten months now at the urging of my guitar teacher Bobby Gibson. My real nails are tougher than tissue paper but not much. Also the middle one has been growing in split in two ever since I dropped a Harley on it 35 years ago, making it pretty much worthless for picking. I've found the main problem with the acrylic ones to be that they tend to start coming loose from my real nails sometimes, usually at the pickin' end, although sometimes they start to come loose at the back after a week or so as well. From what I understand that can lead to the dreaded fungus growing between the real nail & the acrylic cap, although I haven't had any problems with that so far. When I find one coming loose I use a tiny bit of super-thin CyA glue (super glue) to fill the void. I use the stuff from the hobby shop that's meant for building model airplanes. It is better quality glue than the stuff you get at the variety store & is designed to wick into small spaces. It fills the entire gap & seals the edges quite well. I have mine re-done about every two weeks.

Nils

[PaulBennett]

I had 'Vietnam' Acrylic nails for about 6 years and they worked great as far as picking goes. My nails are weak and seem to break at the sight of garden work or any car repair, so the artificial nails on provided enough strength to last a month before growing out or breaking off and the salon was inexpensive, $6 inc tip, for nails on right hand index,middle, and ring fingers.

Eventually, I got pains at 2 nails, somewhat like ingrown nails but not. I'm now 1 year into growing them out naturally and I probably won't go back. During my 'acrylic' period keeping the nails covered and monthly buffed or sanded down made my natural nails quite thin but as I said, they are coming back to their previous (semi adequate) thickness.

I neither recommend against nor for them. Acrylics certainly help guitar playing, and if you never have a problem great. But during return to natural nails did mean 6 months of no guitar until they again got thick enough to withstand the guitar strings.

Danger of fungus is real if you have a cut at your fingertip and the operator doesn't wash adequately or reuses tools on you from another patron who has the fungus. State laws usually require you provide your own sander and buffing pad (they charge $1 here for the pack which lasts forever) but that is rarely observed. The other danger concerns the methl methacrylate chemical which is relatively expensive. If the shop goes cheap and buys industrial grade chemicals rather than cosmetic grade, you can also have problems if the unfiltered stuff gets into your body via a wound in your fingertip.