Homemade awls – student grade

Awls for class
Awls for class

I had a good time this weekend making awls for my students from a bag of sponge brushes and a paper of doll needles. The red duck tape should find it easy to find them in the studio 🙂

Here’s what I did, step by step:

  1. Drill a hole in the end of each brush handle.
  2. With cutting pliers (snips?), cut off the eye end of the doll needle to a good length.
  3. Insert the needle in the drilled hole together with Loctite glue.
  4. Cut and apply a circle of duck tape to the needle end of the awl, piercing the tape with the needle. Clip curves and smooth allowance around the handle — I pulled and attached every other clipped bit and then went back and attached the remaining ones to minimize bulk.
  5. Wrapped the handle with duck tape to secure the circle of duck tape at the end of the handle and make a nice surface to hold onto to.

Steps 4 and 5 aren’t necessary, but the duck tape adds a nice finishing touch, I think.

I was going to remove the foam brush heads from each one, but then I decided hey! it can be a double-duty tool. When the foam brush is spent, you can either unscrew it and have a straight-up awl, or you can replace the brush head. Rather ingenious, if I say it myself.