How to Make Eyes for Clay Puppets

The tools you need to drill your ball bearings are few. You first will need the delrin eye ball drilling kit with a 1mm drill bit from our store.

You then need to provide a block of wood with a shallow 5/16" hole drilled into it at about half the height of your ball bearings. Finally you will need a nail or center punch with a hammer.

A Center Punch with Delrin Ball Sitting in Piece of Wood with Hole

Delrin Ball Close-Up with Ding from Center Punch

Place a delrin ball bearing into the shallow hole in your piece of wood. Place the tip of your nail or center punch on the tip of the ball bearing and softly strike it once with your hammer. It doesn't take much to make a dimple.

Up close you can see we now have a dimple. The simple hole in the piece of wood kept it from flying off!

Now you just hold the ball bearing in your fingers tightly. Place the tip of the drill bit on the dimple and slowly twist while pressing the bit into the ball. It takes a little force. Once it starts you will see little plastic shavings being ejected around the bit.

Holding Delrin Ball and Drilling Hole with Pin Vice

After a few dozen twists we have a perfect hole about half way into the delrin eye. It's now ready for painting.

Painting tip: Paint a large black dot over the center of your hole and wait for it to dry. Then paint a smaller circle inside the black circle in whatever color you want the eye. Usually blue, green or brown. You will have a neat black edge all the way around. Then when that paint is dry paint a black dot in the middle.

You can find pin vices and Delrin balls in our online store over here.