I need an easy or clever way to contour cake dummies. Thanks in advance-- Carol

does this mean you want to cut a specific shape? I know it must be an easy enough question, and maybe because I havent had my coffee yet...but I am not sure what you mean..
does the cake dummy shape well so that you can just "mold" or do you want to make a round cake out of a square and such???? My husband has had to cut lots of things like that for different things...and he uses an exacto knife, box cutter, and one of his sharp knives from hunting.... if you want to cut one use something like that...but of course remember to draw the lines first.......you will have to be very patient of course cuz its so thick....

I think I've heard of people cutting them with and an electric carving knife, but I've never tried it.

Carve them out with a sharp knife, and then take a piece of wax paper and place ove the cake dummy, and then take a warm iron on top of that to smooth the rough cut edges.
Hope this helps!
m0use

I wonder if you could somehow attach a piece of rounded foam or styrofoam to the top. It could be something temporary that way you could use the dummy either way.

I recently asked the cake instructor this question and she advised that she spritzes the dummy then rolls a fondant roller across the surfaces and edges to form a smoothd edge.

a trick use in theater to shape foam is to use the type of plane pictured below...sort of an industrial grade microplane food grater. available at your local Home Depot and Lowes

only works w/ sytrofoam ...wont' work w/ squishy or the type insulated coffee cups are made of.

Colette Peters recommends using the other kind of styrofoam - the old-fashioned "crispy" stuff with the rough texture...not the newfangled stuff made out of little balls smushed together. She says the crunchy styrofoam will work just like sandpaper on the dummy foam. Didn't try it...just passing on her recommendation.