Luthier Cloth Nail File Kit

I’ll share with you a brief story about my own experience with the Luthier cloth files. I am both a musician and a luthier, and my fingernails tend to take a beating because of all the work I do in the shop. For a while, I didn’t have much enthusiasm to play a favorite guitar that I built because it just wasn’t sounding as good as it had in the past. I attributed some of the degradation to the strings, and some to the wild swings in humidity. I checked the setup, but it was pretty much as it was when I first completed it. I changed the strings, and that helped some but not enough.

At that point I wasn’t factoring in my nails at all, but our first shipment of Luthier Cloth Nail File kits had just arrived, so I decided to see how they worked. I started polishing my nails working my way through the various grades of micro mesh cloths in the kit. I was blown away with the tone improvement I heard when I played a few pieces. I kept working on my nails, refining them with the 6000 and 8000 cloths over the next few days. I continued to get more and more out of my guitar, which I attribute to the continued nail polishing. I don’t believe I could have achieved the same result with a diamond file or a matchbook, both of which I had used in the past. Going through the selection of Luthier micro meshes enabled me to squeeze out a bit more sonic performance with each nail polishing session.

Let’s face it, a lot of us don’t think much about our fingernails and the potential well cared for fingernails can do for your sound; I know I certainly wasn’t. But just about any seasoned player knows that proper nail care does improve tone. A fingernail edge properly shaped and polished forms an efficient ramp that promotes a strong, clear tone void of much unwanted string noise. I highly recommend you give Luthier cloth nail files a try, it’s a great way to improve your sound without spending a lot of money.

Chuck Marfione
Luthier and co-owner of All Strings Nylon