Aren't hangers too soft for this sort of thing? It's been a decade since I've seen one, almost twice that since I've used one for crafts, so my experience might be outdated.
You can get steel or brass rods and tubes at most art/craft/hobby shops. Metal rods out of old toys, electronics, etc, can be a good alternative too, although, a real pain to find when you need something specific, more of a "collect now and use at some future point" type of thing. Along the same lines, plastic rods and tubes can be collected from food, toys, candy, office supplies, etc. Wooden skewers from the grocery store might work, probably not very smooth though, wooden dowels from the craft store are smoother but way more expensive, more variety in size though.
