Homemade sculpting tools

I had actually posted this picture on my Instagram a couple of weeks ago, but I wanted to leave posting about them on here until I had used them a couple of times. After running out of my monthly hobby budget, I realised that I hadn't bought any sculpting tools. So I remember reading an awesome tutorial on Stuart Bray's site (click here for link) on making your own. Now Stuart uses some brass tubing and epoxy putty to make his, I didn't have any of those, but instead of following his tutorial, I used it as inspiration to create some very primitive and budget sculpting tools with what I had sitting around.

The items I used to create mine were -

• Pens - ink tubes removed and the ends sawed with a hacksaw.
• Hot clue - to glue the tips in instead of the epoxy putty.
• Both high and low E strings from an acoustic guitar.
• Bobby pins.
• Paper clips.
• Clipped leads from a few resistors.
• Panel pins.
• Screw eye from a picture hanging kit.

Using all of these I made 4 double ended sculpting tools that work really well. I am particularly happy with the guitar strings and bobby pins, they are extremely effective. I will of course buy some proper tool sets in the near future, but these will definitely do the job until then and even remain in my kit afterwords. The really cool thing is, most things have to potential to be used or made into a sculpting tool. You are only limited by your own imagination!

Phil