nails

[ceciltguitar]

I play nylon string guitar and have tried many things, including ping pong balls, Swiss silk, Krazy glue and baking soda (from Pierre Bensusan's first book) acrylic nails, several of the artificial nails made for guitarists.

The best solution for me for the past 10 years has been to use Krazy glue to glue strips of plastic underneath my nails from "photo-laminating sheets", something like this: http://www.amazon.com/Scotch-Self-Seali ... B00004TS5V

This type of product is very thin, so the feel when plucking is almost the same as with genuine nail, perhaps a little slipperier, and the tone that I get is as good of a tone as I can get.

I use one of the older products from http://guitarplayernails.com/ under my thumbnail because this product is thicker.

[Mike Detlefsen]

Bill, the first time I used silk (I mis-typed it as 'nylon' in my post) reinforcements was several years ago with this kit:

https://www.stringsbymail.com/savarez-n ... 82hi2o6954

Now I buy the silk and glue separately from Amazon (for less money). The glue ("gel resin") appears to be bog-standard Cyanoacrylate (Super Glue).

Note that it does not make your nails any longer, it only reinforces what is there. It helps for a cracked nail and weak nails, but won't repair one that has a chunk broken off. I haven't had a nail with a piece broken off since I started using this stuff.

Mike

[ceciltguitar]

Bill, not quite "nylon cloth", but I buy http://www.amazon.com/Supernail-Swiss-S ... B002MFWH70 at Sally's Beauty Supply (about once every 3 years, accompanied by my wife). The link says "self adhesive". What I buy looks just like the picture in the link , but has to be glued on using nail glue, which is almost but not quite the same as Krazy glue. Swiss silk does make the nails harder, not as hard as acrylic.