Strengthening your nails for pickin' - New method

Subject: Strengthening your nails - New method
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 05 Feb 10 - 07:04 PM

I believe I may have hit upon a revolutionary new way to develop significantly stronger nails.

About five months ago my left thumbnail became trapped between the edge of a heavy steel door and the door frame, with the result that a black blood clot developed underneath the nail, just at the cuticle line, and a new nail subsequently started growing underneath causing the old nail to shed itself, (bit like a crab does with its shell)

The interesting thing is that although the new nail directly under the old nail is quite thin, the new growth following on behind appears to be phenomenally thick, at least double the thickness of the old nail.

Obviously it is of no advantage to a right handed guitar player to have an abnormally strong left thumbnail, but just imagine the benefits to be gained if you had every picking finger on your right hand treated in this way, along with the thumb ?

I don't recommend the DIY treatment with the steel door which my thumb underwent, (too inexact), I would get a friend to hit your nail(s) right at the cuticle with the cross pein of a 16 oz hammer, making sure that he (or she) is reasonably skilled in its use. The art is in making sure you get a nice bruise, without drawing any blood.

Or maybe somebody could design a guillotine type implement with a nicely rounded blunt edge to give a more controlled trauma.

No pain, no gain ...

Subject: RE: Strengthening your nails - New method
From: Melissa
Date: 05 Feb 10 - 07:14 PM

I'm trying a similar method on a finger that's always been too weak for me to work up much clawhammering. So far, I've gotten to the stage where the thicker nail is growing out from the cuticle and aside from the discomfort (and idiocy) of smashing my finger, I am pleased with the apparent result.

I wonder if this treatment requires an unintentional mishap to be effective?

Subject: RE: Strengthening your nails - New method
From: semi-submersible
Date: 05 Feb 10 - 07:22 PM

Why not skip the trauma and inoculate the cuticle with fungus directly?

I try to remember to put a drop of rubbing alcohol on the edges of my rough, thickened toenail every day or two. As long as I remember, new healthy nail gradually comes up from the base. When I forget, the thickened part spreads back down. One of these years, I'll remember long enough for the ugly bit to get pushed off the top and cut off, and it'll be back to normal.

I think mine started from an injury too.

Subject: RE: Strengthening your nails - New method
From: Jack Campin
Date: 05 Feb 10 - 07:25 PM

I discovered a neat way to remove a wart on your finger when I was seven years old. Get your uncle to slam the sliding door of a van on it. He managed to hit it just right so the wart was ripped out by the roots and my finger was otherwise uninjured.

Subject: RE: Strengthening your nails - New method
From: Don Firth
Date: 05 Feb 10 - 07:39 PM

Way back in the mists of antiquity, I asked my classic guitar teacher about strengthening my nails. He recommended that I dab a bit of iodine on the matrix of each nail (root of the nail back by the cuticle), then put on a coat of clear nail polish. Every few days, remove the nail polish and reapply both the iodine and the clear nail polish.

Also clip the nails periodically and carefully shape them and polish the edges with something like a "Diamond Deb" nail file (Revlon also has one like it).

Sounded a bit cockamamie to me, but I tried it, and lo! after a few months, my nails started growing out a bit thicker!

I did it to only the right hand thumb, index, middle, and ring fingers, and left the rest alone—and these were the digits on which the nails got stronger. I kept it up for the better part of a year, and I can say that since then, my nails have been good and strong, and I've never had a problem with them (unless, of course, I really bash a nail on something or do something smart like try to use my thumbnail as a screwdriver).

Your mileage may vary, but it seemed to work pretty well for me.

Don Firth

P. S. A lot less screaming and swearing involved with this method than by hitting your nails with a hammer. . . .

Subject: RE: Strengthening your nails - New method
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 05 Feb 10 - 07:42 PM

..Why not skip the trauma and inoculate the cuticle with fungus directly?...

I don't think that would achieve quite the desired objective, nobody would want yucky yellowing unhealthy looking nails on their picking fingers.

My new nail looks perfectly normal, just thicker ...

Subject: RE: Strengthening your nails - New method
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 05 Feb 10 - 07:47 PM

..."A lot less screaming and swearing involved with this method than by hitting your nails with a hammer"...

naturally, you would avail yourself of a suitable anaesthetic before undergoing treatment.

a couple of bottles of Jim Beam should just about do it ...

Subject: RE: Strengthening your nails - New method
From: Gurney
Date: 05 Feb 10 - 11:55 PM

You could try eating jelly every day. It worked for me, but only as long as I kept eating it. Takes forever to grow in.

That's English jelly, the green and yellow wobbly stuff, Gelatine/gelatin. Blaster Bates described the ingredients as 'Osse's hooves, cow's horns and donkey's queer things.'

Subject: RE: Strengthening your nails - New method
From: Mr Happy
Date: 06 Feb 10 - 08:52 AM

Also can be used for toothache pain relief.

Put your thumb on the edge of a table & give it a big whack with a hammer!!

The intense pain'll take your mind off the toothache!

Subject: RE: Strengthening your nails - New method
From: theleveller
Date: 06 Feb 10 - 01:10 PM

"naturally, you would avail yourself of a suitable anaesthetic before undergoing treatment.

a couple of bottles of Jim Beam should just about do it ... "

Now you tell me!!!!

Subject: RE: Strengthening your nails - New method
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Feb 10 - 08:30 PM

I'm not too sure about the "hitting the nail with a hammer" approach--even as appropriate as it seems to sound.

Some years ago, my wife managed to slam her thumb in the car door, and her thumbnail grew back in kinda funny. The curve is slightly concave rather than convex, and it tends to split from time to time.

I'm not sure the results of this method are all that predictable.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Strengthening your nails - New method
From: Bert
Date: 06 Feb 10 - 09:00 PM

Any manicurist would be only too pleased to reinforce your nails with silk.

Tree once reinforced a friend's thumbnail with an Exacto blade and he impressed the hell out of his mates at work by scoring Sheetrock with his thumbnail.

Subject: RE: Strengthening your nails - New method
From: GUEST,999
Date: 06 Feb 10 - 09:12 PM

Got just the machine for ya . . . .

Subject: RE: Strengthening your nails - New method
From: Genie
Date: 06 Feb 10 - 11:14 PM

To the extent that fingernails are used in plucking and strumming strings, I think this thread really is about music and belongs upstairs. : )

Subject: RE: Strengthening your nails for pickin' - New method
From: bubblyrat
Date: 07 Feb 10 - 11:35 AM

I attended a morning workshop with Martin Carthy a few years back,at Sidmouth,at which he told us that he regularly built up his fingernails with layers of "Superglue " . And why not ?? Although I prefer a plectrum !

Subject: RE: Strengthening your nails for pickin' - New method
From: alex s
Date: 07 Feb 10 - 07:27 PM

Terry Docherty recommended the lining of silk ties...........

Subject: RE: Strengthening your nails for pickin' - New method
From: Gurney
Date: 07 Feb 10 - 10:24 PM

-I've known fingerpickers who use artificial nails, intended for ladies, glued over their own soft nails. A temporary measure, because nails harden with usage. Stimulation of the nail root, I believe.

Subject: RE: Strengthening your nails for pickin' - New method
From: Alice
Date: 07 Feb 10 - 10:54 PM

I found a product a year ago that really works...

FlexiNail
Penetrating nail conditioner
apply daily to nail & cuticle

It is a clear oily substance you brush on.

http://www.flexinail.com/

Ingredients on the label:
The official INCI (ingredient nomenclature): Simmondsia Chinensis, Glycine Soja, Carthamus Tinctorius, Helianthus Annuus, Squalane, Ethoxydiglycol, Vitis Vinifera, Limnanthes Alba, Phytantriol, Oenothera Biennis, Lecithin, Tocopheryl Acetate, Butyrospermum Parkii, Rosmarinus Officinalis, Commiphora Myrrha, Bosweillia Carterii, Tocopherol, Propylene Glycol, Diazolidinyl Urea, Iodopropynyl Butylcarbamate, Fragrance, Phenoxyethanol

Subject: RE: Strengthening your nails for pickin' - New method
From: GUEST,kendall
Date: 08 Feb 10 - 08:08 AM

Super glue works on nails and on your left finger tips. It forms a temporary callus almost as good as the real thing.
Also it's less painful than the pile driver or hammer.

Subject: RE: Strengthening your nails for pickin' - New met
From: Mark Ross
Date: 08 Feb 10 - 09:45 AM

I sort of remember reading a piece by Pete Seeger(it may be found in his INCOMPEAT FOLKSINGER)talking about hitting his finger with a hammer, the regrown nail being stronger....etc. Too damn painful if you ask me. I frail the banjo withour any fingernails. In fact if my nails start to get too long, my frailing doesn't sound as good.

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Strengthening your nails for pickin' - New method
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 08 Feb 10 - 05:18 PM

My guitar teacher(he is good its the student who is crap) saves his nail filings and mixes then with superglue to make an emergency repair should he break a nail.
He does play lots of hours a day so his nails obviously take some punishment.

Subject: RE: Strengthening your nails for pickin' - New method
From: GUEST,Guest (Mark Bluemel)
Date: 09 Feb 10 - 05:26 AM

John Martyn reportedly used dental cement to build up his nails.

I've watched John Renbourn cut up ping-pong (table tennis) balls and glue them to his nails.

The rec.music.maker.guitar.acoustic newsgroup used to discuss this endlessly - I seem to remember agricultural "Horn and Hoof" cream being recommended.