Making cool sand castles is much easier than you might expect. You need tools, and you need knowledge. You will have an ample supply of both when you buy “The Works” from our products page, but we repeat some here, because there are a few you never want to forget when you’re starting out!
These are tips that are not secrets, but are not so generally known among amateurs. Pro’s use ‘em every day. They require not so much practice, as implementation. The most important tips are often the most obvious…
Wet The Sand
Not just wet , but really wet. The sand MUST be wet through and through if you want it to hold its shape. You can’t have too much water. It will run out and find its own natural saturation point. The idea here is: different sand, different saturation point, but all sand must be saturated!
Go Slow
Patience is more important than talent, especially when you’re learning. Remove small amounts of sand at a time. This is not clay! You may not think so, but it is very difficult and in most cases impossible to replace sand on the initial pile once it is gone. If you are trying to pack sand after you are into the sculpture, what do think happens to your completed work? And remember: It is a rare occasion if ever that a detail can be created with just one pass of a tools. Make several passes to remove more and more sand until you reach just the point you want.
Pack The Sand
The tighter you pack the sand, the better it will hold together. Pound it, smack it, pat it down tight, hit it, strike it, batter it down, thump it, pummel it till it’s tight, clobber it, sock it, beat it with anything you have, give it a wallop… get the idea?
Pile High-Pile Wide
Start with a pile a bit larger than you think you will need. We don’t “build” a sand sculpture. We create a sand sculpture by removing all the parts of the pile that are not part of the creation! We must then make sure that there is ample sand for the creation to exist before we carve it in the first place! As we said above, it is difficult to add sand to our pile once we are fairly well into the piece.
Get A Straw
These are technically referred to as manually operated pneumatic sand blasters, it is used for a specialized form of sand blasting! We use it to blow loose sand away from sculpture details. When you direct the flow of air, it removes only the loose sand, leaving the new detail made in the packed sand right where you want it. Saves the eyes too! Every package of Can You Dig It Sand Tools comes with a straw in case you forgot to pick one up on your way to the beach. This should be replaced now and then for obvious reasons. Click here for a suggestion of where you may get a free straw replacement! A small purchase may be required!
Take It From The Top
Always work from the top down! Unless you enjoy doing things twice. Once you complete an area, you don’t want to go back up and re-work it thus having to re-clean the completed sections below and risk ruining lower details: same thing with details closer to the center of your creation. Don’t make an outer wall and then try to move to the middle for a walkway: it messes up your wall when you try to get sand out of the middle.
Have Fun!
Don’t get frustrated. If you fight these laws of sand sculpting, the laws will win: You will begin to experience those other laws of Mr. Murphy’s as they pertain to sand sculpting: and as we know from all things, they will catch up to you soon enough anyway.