[kayoubi]

Hi guys,

I wanted to ask if filing your callouses is normal for a player? If I don't file my callouses, I sometimes get sharp pains on my fingertips after a long practice session. But after filing them my fingers always seems to be slipping off the strings since the callouses are all smoothed out.

What do you guys do to take care of your fretting hand?

[jdpaz]

How long have you been playing?

[kayoubi]

Hello jdpaz.

I've started playing a little a year ago but gotten into guitar a lot more over the last 6 months.

[jdpaz]

In my experience, those callouses will develop 'deeper' in your fingertip after a while and they won't be rough anymore.

Once in a while you'll have a rough one, though. I gently peel it off. There's usually some underlying callous still left there.

[kayoubi]

so is using a file a bad habit? if the callouses wears out by itself like you described then I shouldn't really have to do any in particular to take care of them?

[starsailor]

I wouldn't be into filing them myself, I've been playing most days (I'm still not great lol) for nearly 3 years and like jdpaz says they do become pretty set with only the occasional one peeling, mine are pretty thick now and have been for the last two years, I do file my nails but I let the callouses do their own thing.

[rwjones3]

I file mine occassionally. Sometimes when I am filing my fingernails on my picking hand or when the callouses get overly 'denty'. Just have to be careful not to over do it. Done that before and had to sort of start over with the callouse build up.

Robert

[RockaBilly]

I've wondered about callouses on the fingertips. Do they stay even though they don't look like it? I noticed that my fingertips looks and feel normal even though I've played for years. That's not to say I didn't get callouses but looks like I don't have 'em anymore.

[kayoubi]

My callouses aren't even so there there are specific spots that hurts when I play. That's when I use a file to keep them in check.

[cshude]

I don't get thick and crusty- that may be from drinking a lot of water. I notice that if I go a couple days without getting as much H2O that I'll start to get peeling of the outer layers. Otherwise, they stay pretty smooth and pliant. I recall picking off layers of loose edges of calluses in the early years, but not in the past 10 or so.

[CirrusPilot]

I don't file mine either. As I first started developing them, they were thick and hard crusts on the tips of my fingers. I had difficulty using a computer keyboard because they were so thick and without feeling. The more I played, they eventually peeled themselves off. The callouses that I have now resemble nothing like what I started with. My callouses now are practically invisible. They're not still and hard and numb like they started out. They're flexible and I really don't even notice them. They don't stand out or even look like callouses anymore. I can play for probably 2 to 3 hours straight and not even notice pain. I guess my opinion would be to leave them alone and eventually they'll smooth themselves out. At least they did for me.

[solidwalnut]

As jdpaz says, they'll get deeper into the fingertip with practice. I have developed the bad habit over the years of catching a rough spot and peeling the the top layer of my callouses (nervous habit). But because I play so much, the callouses are deep and the skin just heals itself and becomes a smooth callous again in no time.