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:
- Drill a hole in the end of each brush handle.
- With cutting pliers (snips?), cut off the eye end of the doll needle to a good length.
- Insert the needle in the drilled hole together with Loctite glue.
- 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.
- 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.