David Russell has just published the photo below on his Facebook page, showing the way to use a ping-pong ball and superglue to make false nails for guitar playing. I’ve used this method before with success, definitely better than playing with no nails at all. Take a look at the photo and David’s clarification below, for further tips and tricks from him also visit the Tips for Guitarists category on his blog.
Well, the last post gave a lot to talk about. Here are some answers about the false nail. My own “a” nail changed shape a little so I wasn’t getting the tone I wanted. I tried many different ways and this is the best for me. Use superglue gel so that it doesn’t run all over the place, very little is enough. Rasgueado is not easy, (use the other fingers). I started using this about 8 years ago. There are other ways that also work well. If it doesn’t sound good it is because it is not done right. Experiment to find the best system, you never know when you might need it…
Amazing. Thanks for sharing…
It’s great to see the pros demonstrating this but- I use rasquedo in quite a few pieces (20%) so this under the nail technique does not work for me, nor does a double sandwich style under the nail and over the nail (tried it and it definitely failed). The only thing that works for me is on top of the nail, a large piece of ping pong that covers most of the nail (80%). You need some of the nail to breath but you need to remove any chance of it catching when you do rasquedo. The clear ping pong balls from guitarist nails sound the best, followed by rico nails preformed, then strings by mail preformed. The preformed really have the right shape for me where as the clear ping pong sounds the most accurate and pleasant. Colored ping pong sounds like the preformed plastics.
Thanks Brian, this is very useful information!