What's the weirdest tool you use?

P1610747

My love affair with glaze continues, always. Check out these three pieces.... I'm still working on super low energy so staring off into glaze space suits me just fine.

P1610705

P1610722

Ohh, ahhh...... dreamy.....

Weird Tools

In other news.... I was looking around my piles of mess today and I realized that I have an inordinate amount of cat and dog nail files that I pick up every time I go to the local Pet Smart. I've found that they work perfectly to quickly sand the ends of freshly cut ear wires or to smooth a rough edge of metal. They are fairly heavy duty so they hold up well and really do the trick.
What kind of odd things do you find yourself using in your craft?


Comments

I use the nail files as well for the wire. For my pottery, I use an ear bulb syringe for casting small parts. And pipe cleaners to clean glaze out of bead holes. And the inexpensive paring knives from the grocery or drug store are my favorite fettling tool.
SummersStudio said…
Q-tips for cleaning little things and a demitasse spoon for burnishing. I use those nail files for lots of things. They are cheap!
Ariane said…
lollypop sticks to make little mini emery sticks in various grades, white out and paper clips when soldering :)
Artisan Clay said…
What's the white out for Ariane?

Let me walk over and see what I can find that might be a little strange...

I used to have the best Banana Slicer ever-- now i have a butter slicer and an egg slicer. The banana slicer was better.
Spirited Earth said…
i love the glazing on that bottom piece..gorgeous.
Lol about the pet nail files..
I use a la cross file for feet. yea i know bad images arise..but the sandy parts are stuck really well onto the plastic and there are 2 different grades course and fine on the same tool.
Gardanne said…
The end of the handle on a nutcracker, to make the dings on my dimpled beads. I am notorious for heading to the kitchen and the toolbench at estate sales to find cool steel tools to manipulate or texturize my glass.
Dont have a dapping block so for small bead caps I've been using the top of a super glue bottle and the wooden broken end of a clay tool that fits it perfectly...oh to win Lotto...
SueBeads said…
I use a kitchen knife for making dents in beads, and a spoon to hold enamels!
Leslie Gidden said…
I have one of my daughter's disposable Playtex baby spoons....it is great for filling tiny bezels with goodies before the resin! Since she is almost 6 now, I's day I got good use out of it! :)

Warmly,
Leslie
Ariane said…
White out is great if you've multiple solder seams and don't want previous ones to run when doing the last few/attaching the pin back etc
GraceC said…
I'm new to fabricating, so thanks for the whiteout tip, Ariane.
CRAZY for the glaze in the first piece, but they're all glorious.
My very favorite tool (and I have two of them) is a very long, very thin rod of metal with a very sharp point on one end. I got them in a wooden box of tools I bought at an auction two decades ago, bidding just for the box, unaware it contained stuff. I use them for poking holes in earring cards, untangling chain, as a mandrel for winding wire when making small jump rings, as a chuck when I used a Dremel, pushing small pieces around, etc. Every once in a while, one of them goes missing and I practically sleep holding the other one to keep it safe.
BTW, my word verificaiton term is "pantlygo." (Oh, if only it were "pantyglo"!) As an editor, I find many of these near-words hilarious. Am considering keeping a list of them for naming my pieces. Would save time.

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