I've played guitar for a little over a decade now. But have never ventured into playing blues, let alone a slide *sad I know*. Today I decided to make my own slide, but I don't drink, so I don't have any of those handy wine bottles layin around. But I came across a box of copper tubes that fit just right around my finger, so I took a couple, pieced them together in a nice fashion, took a fine grade sand paper on one of my dads machines and polished it up really nice.Monolog aside, I was wondering if having used the sand paper if it will be harder on my guitar? It seems very very smooth, and looks fantastic, but I'd like to cause as little ware on my strings as possible. Any advice is helpful :) thanks guys!
Copper's going to be quite a bit softer than the bronze and steel in your strings, but if there's any roughness to the surface you might need to be a bit careful of the edge of your fretboard. Plus the slide might be a bit noisier. You could always use finer grit paper or steel wool to polish it up more if necessary though. I'm not sure how well a copper slide will hold up in use though - I wouldn't be surprised if it got scarred up and didn't slide so well after a while. I like a steel tube myself for playing slide.
I don't know why you used sandpaper along the surface of the pipe. I would have just used it around the edges so that you don't slice your finger in half.
