This pearlescent plastic is typical for guitar picks:
But, of course, it’s hard to find out what you’re actually looking at. On Amazon many vendors claim it’s celluloid… But talk is cheap and Glowforges are expensive.
If anyone has figured out how to source and cut this kind of stuff, please share!
I wouldn’t play with celluloid; tho it can mean many things most of them are highly flammable. Try a pick punch? They’re only like $20.
I remember looking at this a while back and came to the same conclusion. A pick punch is cheap and easy.
Well, yeah, but you can’t make your own shapes ‘n’ stuff with a punch, where’s the fun in that?
Hopefully this stuff is some benign plastic and not actually celluloid. I asked one manufacturer for details.
personally, i prefer the professionally made picks. i like the more rounded edges and less “sharpness” to the pick.
granted, you can play with almost anything (i’ve cut a corner off an old hotel room card to play), but i’ve never been a fan of the pick punch picks. but that’s just me (and i’m not a very good guitar player).
for material, they’re made out of a lot of different thicknesses and vary in flexibility (not just because of thickness). sometimes you’ll get a softer, very flexible nylon pick and sometimes you’ll get a hard acrylic pick. my bag of picks is all over the place for material.
Since picks are cheap I also have tons of them too, they are fun to try.
I figured out that a “medium” celluloid style is pretty much where I want to be. They are easy enough to get commercially but I mainly wanted to experiment with adding textures and cutouts to make them more grippy.
i totally get it.
Not sure what the “celluloid” picks are made from, but my personal favorites are made from acetal that’s been printed on. From what I’ve read, acetal is a no go on a laser cutter, because it is just generic enough there could be “Bad Stuff” ™ inside of it.
However, delrin appears to be laser-safe (always do your own research before believing a random post on the Internet), and acetal is essentially the cheap knock-off of delrin (subtle but important differences between homopolymers and copolymers). So if you can get your hands on some true delrin, it might be good for playing around with guitar pick shapes.
From DuPont, who makes Delrin, Delrin is acetal. It is a subset of the acetal resin family, which includes homopolymers and copolymers.
I have gotten pick material from this place
https://www.pickpunch.com/plastic-sheets.html
They don’t have a big selection, but I got a half dozen different colors I think. Most are, as stated by others, delrin.
Great source, thank you!