Tools for carving soap?

Question

I am a high school art teacher. I'd like to do soap carving with my high school students. I'm on a small budget and need to find safe carving tools, or even make them. I was thinking of just using bars of Ivory soap. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

A small pairing knife is great but the school might object to a metal knife. Try pottery tools and manicure tools.

Answer 2

Any pottery tools should work fine. Most arts or crafts stores should have some inexpensive multi packs with a few tools, sponge, and clay cutting wire. If you want you could get some dental tools, you can get some cheap decent quality dental tools off of ebay.

Anthony Pittarelli

Answer 3

use plastic picnic knives. With school policies the way they are now I would think that's about as close to a sharp knife as you will get. These can be stropped on fine sand paper to thin them for smoothing out the finish. Other thin plastics like 2 liter pop bottles can also be shaped to get into the crannies. I even used a variable speed dremel one time when I was in a rush to get an idea into concrete shape.

Answer 4

I think when I was a child we used plastic knives. Back then the knives were a little stronger, so i dont know if they well work as good today .. and ivory soap works the best.

Answer 5

you could use plastic knives from any store like walmart or dollar store. also, paint scrapers. they work great! also, raps work well. you can find plastic ones at any hardware store for pretty cheap. and for detailed work use nail files, metal, or even scraps of plastic. you can also break the plastic silverware to make sharp edges.

but i would be weary of using soap with fragrance in it. some of your students could be allergic so make sure you get some gentle soap.

Answer 6

See if you can get used dental tools. They have a number of different types of tools and should be safe enough

Answer 7

pottery tools, if that's still to high, try spoons forks and screwdrivers things around your house