Polymer Experiences
January 4th, 2007
While covering this switch plate with the gradient flower cane, I have discovered that the two weeks of resting conditioned the cane just perfect for covering. It was just hard enough to keep its shape during slicing and covering but still soft enough to work with.
Here is a few tips for cane work:
Use hard clays. You will have less distortion of the pattern and color mixing will be less.
If you have soft clays, try to keep them in freezer for a few minutes before slicing.
Use a sharp razor for slicing. If you observe distortion during slicing, put the clay back in the freezer a little more.
Due to lack of time, instead of wrapping the cane in foil and storing, I had left it on my desk for about two weeks. In long term, this will cause the clay to dry. But in these two weeks, it just got hardened and made my job easier. If you have time, you may want to try leaving your cane out for a while before working with it.
After the switch plate is covered, how do you bake it? What type of plate is used? I presume not plastic but metal type?
Also, do you have any advice for baking glass vases with polymer clay applied to the outer surface? I am having trouble avoiding de-lamination. Should I use adhesive?
Thanks.
I use standard plastic switch plates and surprisingly, no warping or any other distortion occur. But you may also use the metal ones. In any case, there are no special instructions for baking. Just use what the polymer clay label says for the temperature. No change is necessary.
As for the glass applications, In my experience, delamination usually tells that you either covered too thin a clay sheet over the clay or too thick. Also, before beginning, you should condition the clays well. You shouldn’t need any adhesive application. Just experiment a bit to get the right thickness.
thank you for all the detailed help. I wanted to ask exactly the same 2 questions with Ebru.
i think I have now understood a bit. I didn’t understand how do you determine the right thickness of clay to the glass?
I am a novice at polymer clay. What project would you recommend to start with? I have 3 pieces of cernit, a white, green and blue
I tried to do the polymer clay for a pen. I used a plain bic pen, put it on the oven at 130oC for 30mins as cernit suggests but the plastic pen melt.
What did I do wrong?