>Thank you Tilman for the link to your comments in 2012. So by now I imagine you have come to some fairly solid conclsions about oiling the undersides? <

Well, I should in fact post about this again on my blog, but here we go: 

What I think I've found is that oiling plectra (about which I used to be unconvinced--as a student, I always oiled my plectra, but later I quit, and at the time the difference seemed small...) _seems_ to help keeping the plectra in trim when they are _not_ played. This would apply to non-drying kinds of oil exclusively, of course.
As soon as one has other commitments than playing, or several instruments, this tends to become a substantial problem. It just isn't great fun to finally sit down to start practicing that one Frescobaldi piece that's been lying about for months only to find that one has to spend half a day getting one's dormant Italian harpsichord going again before one even can tune it. So that's a solid advantage of oiling I feel.

And since it is really no trouble at all to keep a bottle with Ballistol (or whatever else suitable oil) and a few sticks of wood close to one's plectra-workstation, why not do it...

Happy New Year to all!

Tilman

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