Taking care of your picks

Only 3 things to remember:

1| Don’t overbend the picks, especially not with two hands

Picks almost never break when you play them, but they quickly do when you bend them forcibly by hand the wrong way.

2 | Don’t bend the pick along the grain
If you want to check the gauge/flexibility of a pick, only bend the pick from top to bottom, never from side to side. Place the index and middle finger on the back of the pick and use the thumb on the front towards the middle of the pick with light pressure to determine the flex of  the pick.

3 | Don’t heat the pick over 40°C/104°F
As a rule of thumb, don’t do to your picks what you wouldn’t do to your hair or fingernails.

Taking care of your pick

Buffalo horn is a very tough natural material and our special finishing process gives it a protective layer so the picks do not need any special care treatment. Highly polished horn is very tough and will not age significantly under normal playing conditions. You may want to occasionally wash your picks with water and soap to remove grease or rub them off with hand sanitizer or alcohol to sterilise them. Dry the picks thoroughly after cleaning them and do not let them soak.

For the best sound and to prevent excessive pick wear avoid playing with corroded strings and change your strings regularly.

Re-polishing your pick
Stadler Picks have highly polished edges to provide the best possible sound and attack dynamics and so a very regular organic wear pattern can emerge. After a while a bevel following your own playing style will develop on the playing edges of the pick. Some players like to keep playing with this ‘broken in’ edge and others will periodically re-polish the edges to claim back the original ‘hi-speed’ feel, it’s up to you whichever you prefer. Re-polishing the playing edges helps prolong pick life.

Only use the provided 4-way file to touch up the edges or rub quickly on your jeans and do not use sand paper, scrapers or files. Do not reshape, sand or otherwise abrade the picks edges. Stadler Picks edges are specially treated to improve lifetime, sound and playing dynamics. Altering the pick edges can greatly reduce the quality of your playing experience.