How We Make A Custom Guitar Pick (KAW) #2

Making A Custom Guitar Pick From KAW Resin Art

Since the first Bifrost pick we made back in 2019, Kaotic Artworks has been our go to for premium resin materials.
Justin from KAW really does create some, if not the best, poured resin materials that are truly a work of art.
This time we received a couple sample pieces, a green one - which we made another article about here >Green Custom Guitar Pick<
and this red one which we’re about to deep dive into.


This red material featured some really cool transparent octagrams.
These octagrams really popped when you backlit the material & we wanted to incorporate them into the design of the pick.
Unfortunately we weren't able to fit much of them onto the pick because they were just too big.
Still we caught a couple of the angles here and there as you’ll see.


The rest of the material has the Iron Age color trio of red/white/black in a sort of camo pattern,
a mix that was masterfully done by Justin without having all the colors mixed into a big gray blob.
To add another layer of complexity to this, some of the colors were also made to be UV reactive, meaning they glow a different color under blacklight.
In this case, the pick radiates more of an orange color with the transparent lines giving off a bluish glow.
Enough about the material, you can see the video for yourself or scroll down to read about the things we did to make this custom guitar pick a reality.
For more of Justin's work, check out his Instagram @KaoticArtworks


For nice photos of the finished plectrum, scroll to the bottom.

Cold Calculated Precision

First of all, the material had many ridges from being cut and excess runoff from the mold it was created in. So we had to plane both sides flat using our CNC machine.
Once flat & sanded on both sides, we began creating our program for how the engraving was going to be done & how it was going to be cut out.

Next we lined up the CNC cutter in a way that the pick would be cut exactly where we wanted it on the material.
We don’t usually go through this step with other materials but we did here because we wanted some of the translucent lines to be incorporated into the pick design.
After some trial & error we got things aligned and began our first engraving of the helmet & shield logo.

With the engraving out of the way, we swapped tools & began to execute the cutting program.
We managed to fit 5 picks and got them all engraved/cut perfectly.
Finally we applied some of our signature green UV glow resin and let it cure overnight.
We went with green since we thought it would be a great complement to the red & orange parts of the pick.

At this stage we had five of what we call “pick blanks”.
This is what our inventory in the store reflects and when you place an order for a pick,
we take a pick blank off the shelf then finish it by hand to create the finished product.

Handcrafted - Bringing It To Life

With the machining part out of the way, it was time for hand sanding which consisted of basically 4 steps.
Beveling the pick all around by using our belt sander, sanding the sides using 3 different grits, then doing the same 3 grits on the bevels themselves.

The hardest part is free-hand beveling with the belt sander as it requires much practice to get things perfectly round.
It also takes hand-eye coordination, fluid movement, & some imagination as to what you envision the pick to look like at the end.
Not only that but you have to make adjustments to your technique on the fly, and take into account the extra material that will be removed by hand in the later steps.
Once everything was sanded down smooth, it was time to move onto the next stage of the process.

Polished Like A Jewel

With the bevels and sides sanded to a fine grit, it was time to start polishing.
This material in particular is a bit tricky, it’s not like acrylic where you can simply hold it up to the polishing wheel.
If it gets too hot it can begin to crumble or get rubbery. This material definitely needs its own technique to get the level of gloss we’re looking for…
What I like to call a jolly rancher shine. Tasty.

So I started slowly with a cotton buffing wheel and polishing compound until I got a decent finish.
By “decent”, I mean to the point where the pick wasn’t exactly glossy but smooth and with the scratch marks gone.
Maybe 40% polished since a nice glossy finish can’t be accomplished in just a single stage.

After this the pick was taken to a second polishing stage where I used a proprietary franken-mix of liquid polish & an even fluffier cotton buff.
The rest of the polishing happened here and the pick shine was taken from 40% all the way up to 100%
This can take anywhere from 5-10 minutes per stage.

Iron Age & Kaotic Artworks Custom Guitar Pick #2

Last but not least, the faces were sanded in the way we typically do it.
I see a lot of people starting to make their picks like we do btw.
The faces were sanded with a medium grit to contrast the wet-looking gloss.

If it’s not a contrast in color, then it’s a contrast in texture… That’s learned from photography or visual arts.
In this case, the black material contrasting with the white, the red material contrasting with the green engraving,
and finally the polished bevels contrasting with the matte faces of the pick.
All of this is considered.

How long did all of this take?
If I were to run through it from start to finish, maybe 30 minutes to an hour tops.
But with the video recording and all, this pick took a couple of hours to make and shoot simultaneously.
This isn’t taking into account the time it took to put the video together nor the time it took to write this article while also running the daily shop operations…
At this time we were undertaking a pre-order of Sammy Duet’s signature guitar picks.
If you’re into some blackened thrash extreme metal, check him out on Instagram @SammyPierreDuet

A couple of people had asked about the time it took to make a custom guitar pick like this, so I included it this time.
If you have any other questions feel free to comment below.
OR if you have any ideas about content you would like to see from us here at Iron Age, also comment below.
We’re looking forward to your feedback. Let us know how you feel about these videos or if you think we should try something different,
maybe different music? Different video angles? Longer videos, shorter videos?

Anyways, thank you for watching or reading if you got this far!
-Alex & The Iron Age Team

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