The #13 Steel Pinky
When people saw the first generation tools I made, they always asked why I didn't sand them and finish them. I said there was no point. They're sand tools! They lead a rough life and no finish would hold up.
In 1998, when I realized I needed a few more tools, that idea had changed. By then I'd sanded the handle of the Sand Knife and the difference was astounding. It looked like a real tool now, and also felt better in my hand. Sanding became, as has polishing sand sculpture, a part of the process.
The Steel Pinky was one of the first to be made to higher standards from the beginning. The design was derived from the #2 Steel Finger, but made smaller for detail work. I thought a lot about how this tool should work and look before I made it, then I borrowed my neighbor's sabre saw and went to work.
I also had better wood. The carpenter shop where I work is always throwing out scraps whose size is just right for tool handles, so I've turned into a dumpster diver. This particular tool was made from scrap pine left over from the renovation of the Control Center where I work.
The #13/2 Steel Pinky
I went to the beach to haul sand for the next day's sculpture, and took along some tools for making a free-pile sculpture near the borrow pit. Somehow I lost them, and of course they were the most useful ones. If you have a limited number, take the most versatile. I lost the #1 Loop, the Steel Pinky and my small offset spatula. I did the next day's sculpture without these and missed them greatly.
So, replacement became a priority. I started in the next weekend and made a new loop tool. The following weekend I made this replacement Steel Pinky. In the two and a half years between the old and the new I'd learned more about carving wood, and about wood itself. The carpenter shop had started throwing out other kinds of wood, including oak and walnut, but for this tool I used a special piece of wood.
Some friends of mine have a cabin on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. They were adding on to fit their expanding family and had to cut down a cherry tree. They had the tree sawn into lumber which they used for panelling in another cabin. They had a few scraps left over. I chose one for this tool because it's a small tool and the scraps were short.
Cherry turned out to be a delight to work. Fragrant with a memory of cherries and Michigan years. Beautiful to look at. Nice to carve because it has no strange quirks in the grain. Careful sawing, drilling, bending and such, over the course of an afternoon, produced the new tool. It is not only more beautiful (a friend of mine has an image of this tool as her computer's desktop) but it works better because the cherry wood is stiffer. It's a delight to use.
| < Return to About Tools page |
| Library | Human Touch Museum | ||