You’re here so, you’ve either lost your kneaded eraser, want to try one out, or are just curious about how to make one. Here’s exactly how to make a kneaded eraser in just three steps!
To make a kneaded eraser, you need any type of soft eraser and some tape. Erasing the tape with the eraser will make it come apart and cause the stickiness of the tape to be incorporated into it. This results in a kneaded eraser after a few pieces of tape have been erased.
One thing to note: To get a decent-sized kneaded eraser, this will take quite some time. It takes about 10 minutes to get a tiny lump, and you would need a lot of lumps to get a full-sized kneaded eraser. But it doesn’t have to be as big as a regular one – mini kneaded erasers work just fine too!
At the bottom of this post, I’ve posted a short video demonstrating all the steps.
Materials list:
- An old eraser (the softer the better!)
- Tape (scotch tape works best!)
Step 1: Erase the Tape
- Tear off a strip of tape and place it sticky-side up on your desk/table.
- Use your eraser to erase the sticky part of the tape by using back and forth motion.
- Firmly slide your finger across the tape until little rolls of eraser “crumbs” form.
- Do this until there isn’t much stickiness left on the tape!
- Start off with just one strip of tape, but after you’re done all these steps, repeat this over and over with new pieces of tape until you have enough crumbs to make your kneaded eraser as big as you want (again, this will take some time).
Step 2: Gather the eraser crumbs
- Gather all of the crumbs into a little bundle.
- Squish them with your finger and roll them around.
- Your goal here is to make them all stick together to form one consistent piece of putty-like eraser.
- If they aren’t joining together properly, you can get another piece of tape, and repeat step 1, only this time using the crumbs to erase the tape, instead of a regular eraser. It’s the stickiness of the tape that makes them stick together, so you want as much of that incorporated into it as you can.
- If they’re still not sticking together properly, you might want to start again, but this time using a different eraser (make sure it’s soft rubber, or a gum eraser would be even better, but vinyl one’s won’t work).
Here are the differences between the different types of erasers.
- Remember, it will only be a tiny lump at the start, so it’s best to start like this, repeat the steps with a new lump, and then combine. Then keep adding more and more lumps until you’re happy!
Step 3: Erase to improve consistency
In our recent post on how to soften your kneaded eraser, we talked about how erasing charcoal or graphite with it helps to soften it.
This helps it become more consistent and works very well for keep it soft.
This is even more important for DIY kneaded erasers. It’s actually compulsory for getting it to work like a store-bought one. So:
Scribble some dark lines with a graphite pencil (make sure to use a soft pencils in the high B’s. I use an 8B one, but lower B’s will work.
Then squish, roll, erase with your lump of eraser-crumbs – the goal is to incorporate as much graphite into it as you can.
Every so-often, knead the eraser to fully mix the graphite in, and then erase more, and repeat.
Keep doing this and it will soon feel like a kneaded eraser!
The video below is a quick demonstration of all these steps!
And you're done!
It may take some work, and some experimenting with different erasers, but it’s actually really satisfying once you have your own kneaded eraser.
I’m proud of my mini kneaded eraser, and you will be too! 🙂
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