rio rondo carbide scrapers & tools

[Colin_Fraser]

Anybody else use these tools? I picked up a set a year ago and they are the most useful sculpting tools I own. Excellent for seam clean-up and more so for any kind of carving on cured putty. They are strong enough to shave cured sculpey w/o crumbling. I used to do all my sculpting by adding putty and modelling it. I couldn't be bothered bringing out my dremel to carve. Now that I have these, carving becomes a joy. There are different shapes for different uses. I cannot recommend these enough - they are amazing.....and no I do not own shares in rio rondo.

Look at www.riorondo.com and drill down in 'tools" (no pun intended). They have other cool stuff too!

What other tools do you guys use for sculpting? I love my clay and colour shapers too.

Colin

 

[Anders Heintz]

Hey Colin!

The majority of tools that I use are home made. I have several diferent shapes varying from round, to oval and pointy to square tools, all carved from old paintbrush handles. I also use the #10 X-Acto blades a lot along with a metal tool that I made after watching Andrea Jula do a sculpting demo. Another thing that I couldn't sculpt without is W&N Series 7 brushes to smooth the folds with.

 

[Colin_Fraser]

Anders - you use series 7's to smooth folds? Aaaaahhhh!!!! Sacre bleu!
I use my crappiest brushes for sculpting and still feel guilty for puttying them up.

Colin

 

[Anders Heintz]

Hola Colin!

Yeah I used to do that also until I wanted smoother results. Always seamed to get a bad surface when using cheapo's to do the job and I got sick of it so I snatched some WN 7's from my painting stock and now I use them instead. Works like a charm!

 

[Colin_Fraser]

How do yuh clean 'em?

 

[Anders Heintz]

I clean them in water regularily during use and then everyonce in a while I bring out the brush cleaner, namely "The Masters Brush Cleaner and Preserver".

I am not sure if it works all that good, as I never really get any dirt out of the brushes, which can mean two things, either they are really clean, or more likely, I have no clue how to use the stuff

I was told that was the best stuff out there, maybe it is, maybe its not, I dont know.

 

[pkess]

I bought a set of the carbide scrapers several years ago. They are terrific for cleaning up figures, especially resin. They also work well on metal.
By the way, the Rio Rondo book on painitng horses is also superb.

 

[Colin_Fraser]

Anders - I'm still using white spirit and dish detergent to clean my good brushes - so maybe that's why I'm so paranoid about giving them a putty workout.

Phil - you are sooooo right about rio rondo's book.....everything you ever wanted to know about horse painting. They also sell an epoxy putty called Gapoxio - sort of a sticky Miliput (I can't really recommend that product when magicsculp is available).

The best thing they sell are the carbide scrapers - I think I'll becme a carbide scraper evangelist!

Colin