How to Make Your Own Custom Sculpting Tools Easy DIY Tutorial
Jan 18, 2021 16:03 · 1443 words · 7 minute read
welcome to the shop steve here at sks props and in today’s video i’m going to show you how i made some custom sculpting tools out of some easy to find items now most of you know me for my foam smithing abilities but most of the companies that i work for harm me to hand sculpt and resin cast props for them and even though i have an entire tub full of tools most of my sculpting friends will agree you can never have enough specifically ones that will give you unique textures now this is the kind of project that i’ve wanted to do for a while but just haven’t found the time until recently i had an nda build come along where i needed unique textures for my clay and i figured this is the opportune time to do it and if i’m gonna make these i might as well film the journey so i can show you all how i did it so let’s go ahead and get started for the ends of my custom sculpting tools i’m going to be using some wire some scroll saw blades and a guitar string the main body of the tools is going to be made out of some brass tubing that i had picked up online now these tubes are too long and need to be cut in half so i marked the measurement with a sharpie now you of course could use a hacksaw to cut this in half but i’ve got a cobalt pipe cutter that worked great this tool works by tightening the blade against the pipe spinning the pipe tightening spinning tightening spinning until it cuts all the way through now this smaller tube is a 5 32nd will be perfect for the scroll saw blades and the guitar string this larger tube i’m going to use after i combine some wires but it’s the same process of scoring the pipe turning it scoring the pipe turning it until it cuts through now at this point i’m going to debur the ends and get rid of any glue residue before i proceed now the first tool end i’m going to make will be a loop made out of some spiraled steel wire i start off by cutting the wire to length and then folding it in half using some pliers to get it as small as possible i then insert this wire into my drill chuck until it’s secure then by grabbing the other end with some pliers and keeping it stationary i spin the drill this will give it a uniform spiral down the length of the wire this piece can then be formed to shape the excess wire can be cut away and it’s inserted into the brass tube to check for fit i’m going to repeat this same process again for the sculpting tool at the other end so i bend my wire in half i use my drill and i get this uniform spiral instead of having a loop this time i’d like it to have a hard edge so once the wire had been complete i used my pliers to make a hard angle at the top this is also inserted into the brass tube and now i can affix both of these into place now i could just crimp the brass tube and leave it at that but i want to make sure that these do not move at all so i’m going to be using some two part epoxy sculpt this compound is mixed thoroughly and then pressed onto the wires and used to fill the gaps any excess can be pulled away before i use some pliers to squeeze the ends shut then i use some crimping pliers to press the brass as hard as i can against the wire this is to ensure even if i sculpt against some really hard monster clay it’s not going to come out the crimping pliers left a few tool marks so i use my file to smooth everything out just so it looks nice and that’s one custom sculpting tool done for my next tool i’m going to be using a guitar string which i hear works great for smoothing out the clay after using a rake some wire snips are used to cut the guitar string and then i use some needle nose pliers to bend the wire into the shape i like this was actually a lot easier than i thought it was going to be and it retained the shape really well this sculpting head was inserted into the smaller brass tube along with some epoxy sculpt after the tube had been filled i used the pliers once again to squeeze them down and then used the crimping pliers to make sure that this wire didn’t move at all for the other end of this tool i’m going to be using a 15 tpi scroll saw blade now scroll saw blades are pretty brittle so i need to anneal the metal with a blow torch before i can bend it after the metal has been allowed to cool i use the snips to cut off the posts on the ends and use the pliers to start to manipulate the blade now if you don’t heat the blade and you try to just bend it like this the blade will snap now that i have the shape that i want i cut off any of the additional scroll saw blade that i don’t need and insert that into the other end of the brass tube epoxy sculpt is forced down into the tube right alongside the blade and then i can use the crimping pliers once again to make sure that this doesn’t ever come out for the next custom tool head i want to create a small detail loop so i’m going to use more of that guitar string now using the pliers i create the small loop but i don’t want to crimp it too much because i don’t want an angle at the top here i want it to remain round more epoxy sculpt is placed into the tube with the wire and then it can be crimped shut this end should work great to smooth out some hard to reach areas now to go along with the small loop tool that i created i’d like for this other end to have a flat edge i’m once again using the guitar string and my pliers to bend it to the shape that i want now when bending this wire i’d recommend to over bend it to the shape that you’d want because the wire will bounce back a little bit this new tool shape will be placed into the other end of the brass pipe and then again using epoxy sculpt in my pliers i will crimp the brass tube shut now what’s great about these is they’re accustomed to what i want so every tube has a tool at the other end that it complements the sculpting process for example if there’s a rake on one end it’ll have a loop on the other end to help smooth it out so here’s a quick demo of the tools working on some cooled monster clay and how they would work together i would start off by refining with a spiraled wire then i’d move on to a rake which should take it down to more of a level surface and then i use a loop guitar string as a final pass now this will make the surface pretty smooth but you could always take it a little bit further by using some solvents or i like to use my heat gun now this process heats up just the surface of the monster clay which can destroy some of your details so you want to use it sparingly i can then go back with a loop tool one more time brush away the little bits and this surface is very smooth at this point so you all can see the basic steps that i took to put together my own simple custom sculpting tools now hopefully you learned something from this video and if you decide to make your own be sure to tag me on twitter and instagram because i want to see your creation maybe it’s another tool that i need to add to my tub now hopefully you enjoyed this video if you did give it a thumbs up share with your friends and family and until next time thanks for stopping by you.