When Baking Beads, It's OK to Sometimes Break the Rules

If anyone reading here has given this 'extended' bead baking tip a try, let me know how it worked out for you.

Cindy Lietz's last blog post..Roll Polymer Clay Into a Flat Sheet Using Bamboo Skewers

Phew! Still poking around in your blog a bit but yes, I am one of the people who bakes for extended periods of time because it does make a better finished piece.

Given that most (i would say everyone I've ever used) ovens have temperatures that vary even during the 30 minutes of baking time, you are not guaranteed to get to the right temp for long enough in just the amount of time on the package.

So I regularly bake for double the time. Some of my larger pendants or small sculptures have spend more than two hours in the oven by the time they are finished.

Thanks for your comment Elaine. I had heard rumours of other artists like you doing this but hadn't tried it until now. What a fool I was… It is my new favorite technique!

Cindy Lietz's last blog post..Polymer Clay Supplies From Unlikely Places

Great tip!! Thanks for this one! It is very hard to know if it is "done"….so I will bake longer and be safe!!

That's a good idea Kam! You'll find your beads are not only stronger, but they sand up a lot easier too!

Cindy Lietz's last blog post..Polymer Clay Leaf Beads and Handmade Jewelry Making

Okay, this may sound like a nit-picky question, but with the economy, current gas prices, and being an unemployed recent graduate, I have to ask. Is it more cost-efficient to bake clay in the oven or in a little toaster oven. I'm guessing it is more efficient to bake it in the toaster (craft) oven, but I worry about how safe it is to let it run for an hour at a time. Any thoughts? Since my first toaster oven went up in flames the first time I tried to bake clay in it, I am very concerned about safety and efficiency.

Kimberlee, I just answered your similar question on the "how-to-make-a-bead-baking-rack" post. Having your toaster oven burn up would be a terrible thing! So I am recommending you take extreme caution when putting anything into your oven.

Paper or polymer clay does not burn at the proper temperature of 265F degrees. Therefore either your oven was hotter than that, something was wrong with the toaster oven itself or the paper you used touched the element or the sides of the oven.

Always use a oven thermometer to make sure the temp is correct and that it isn't 'spiking'. You have to check when closing your oven because in my toaster oven the element hangs down from the top and if your paper is sticking up it could hit it.

As far as being more efficient, the toaster oven it much more efficient because it is a much smaller place to heat up.

Have you tried the convection/toaster ovens? I found one at our local 'Big Lots' for $20 and am wondering whether I should run out and scoff it up?

I am always at a loss to figure out what temp I should use when I blend clay types (ie. Fimo with Sculpy or Premo etc.) Would going with the lowest common temp but extended time work for this as well do you think?
Eileen

@Pepper: I have heard that the convections ovens are the best because they keep moving the hot air around. That's a great deal… scoop it up!!

@Eileen: I find that if I bake my mixed Fimo, Premo and/or Sculpey III at 265 degrees they do really well. I haven't worked with Kato Clay yet though so I don't know if it will apply there.

Cindy Lietz's last blog post..Slicing Fimo Nail Art Canes | Sculpey Polymer Clay Cake Toppers

I do something I have never seen mentioned anywhere – I first boil my beads for 15 minutes. Then I remove them and give them a toweling off to remove any deposits, then bake them at the recommended temp for the recommended time. Seems to make them really hard, easier to buff to a shine, and there is no risk of a shiny or flat spot.

Thank you for mentioning your technique Kelly! I have heard of people boiling their clay in Europe. Haven't tried it yet myself though. I would like to test the technique and make some videos on it. I've heard it keeps white clay really bright! Thank you so much for your comment!

First time I've used polymer clay. I'm trying to make a 2" button with clay, approx 1/4" thick. After baking it's still flexible, did I do something wrong or using the wrong type of clay? I used Fimo Effects clay. I've baked it 3 times for 30 minutes each time around 230-250 degrees and still flexible. I used a pasta machine to condition it. Please help. :)

I received a comment from Cindy at my blog who advised it was probably the heat of the oven being too high, rather than the length of time I cooked the clay that caused my blackened stinky disaster. I will update my polymer clay post to include this new information. Please have a look at this on Cindy's blog for more information. Her whole website has a wealth of information on polymer clay.

I just love this site and am going to be just full of questions today. I wonder if boiling the beads for 30 minutes may remove the baby oil we that can be used to remove finger prints!!!
For safety reasons I only bake with my toaster oven if I am going to be right in my craft room the whole time. I save up my beads and cure them a bunch at a time.

I recently baked beads covered in cornstarch and rinsed them off in the kitchen sink. Later in the day I was cleaning and turned on the garbage disposal and there was just a loud pinging noise that did not go away. When I reached down in there I found one of my beads that must have swam way.. There was not a nick on it. Now THAT is strong.

Anna, in my experience the baby oil just soaks into the clay when it's baked and doesn't really need to be removed.

That is so cool to hear that your bead was that tough! All because of the proper baking. Well done!

I do the same thing, twice as long in the oven but at the recommended temperature, also let the pieces set over night and they will be even harder. Sometimes a piece will come out of the oven and not feel quite as hard as you want but letting it sit overnight it will be much harder. Toaster ovens rule!

Thanks Cindy for passing this tip along! (There sure are a lot of us Cindy's in the crafting industry, aren't there?) Nice to meet you and thank you for your comment!

Word of caution when baking FLAT objects (i.e. pendants and flat earrings). I use Premo! for my jewelry and am diligent about my oven thermometer. When I bake items that are about 1/8" thick (about a 2-3 on my Atlas) going beyond SIX minutes (at the manufacturer's recommended temperature of 275 F) is completely fatal to my pieces! The instructions say 30 minutes for each 1/4" – which would dictate a 15 minute baking time for an 1/8" piece. Going beyond 6 minutes burns the back and starts to smoke. Only my thinner items remain quite flexible, but still can be sanded to a decent shine.

Should I try a lower temperature?

Mary Beth six minutes is not long enough to properly cure your pieces. I suspect if they are scorching in that short of a period of time, that your oven is spiking in temperature and going much higher than the 275F your thermometer says.

Or if you're baking on a metal pan it could be conducting the heat and making it much hotter especially next to your pieces.

If you click the link by my name it will take you to an article about baking flat pieces in a ceramic tile sandwich.

I have baked thin flat pieces for more than an hour without any problems at 265F in a tile sandwich. Try that and see if it works for you. If not come back and ask more questions.

Hi Cindy,
My second experience is a much better one. My beads are not perfect yet (will they really ever be? no matter) but they baked to nice and hard in the baking rack, 1 hr at 265'. My
flat pendant pieces baked in the ceramic style sandwich may not be quite hard enough. So I'm trying to figure out how hard is hard enough? I am using the Amaco craft oven and it is difficult to become friends. I never baby-sat an oven before but did that yesterday. One scorched bear is enough. What I found is that with the ceramic tile sandwich it took a half hour to get the oven back up to 265' after opening the door and inserting the sandwich. I started my timing of one hour from that time. Yes, I sat there 98% of the time. They didn't scorch so I wasn't quite as mindful with the beads.
I used a different oven thermometer and it registered just like the oven. So your previous thoughts on my first experience that the thermometer might have been faulty was right on.

I would not recommend the Amaco oven as there isn't enough room to get things out safely for a newbie at least. It is lightweight and moves as I open the door. It needs more than clay, more like lead to keep it in place. The shelf also grates when sliding it in and out. Is it just me trying to get used to this oven or has someone else had this experience?

The time and temperature you suggest really works when the equipment is right. Thanks for your help Cindy. I am still practicing and looking forward to my next venture.

That is good news Joyce about the next batches working well! Sorry to hear the Amaco craft oven is a pain. I just have a regular toaster oven for toast and it works well. Maybe someone else will let us know about their experiences with that oven. It would be good to know if it is a pain for others as well.

Hi Cindy,
What a very helpful thread! I had heard about boiling being helpful for keeping white and translucent clays true-to-colour. Also that you can microwave in 4" of boiling water for the same reason. I'm going to try these methods as soon as I can get hold of the right containers.
I will bake for half an hour next time, or an hour for my bangle bracelet (1/4" thick). Can't wait to try it!
You are so helpful, Cindy. Thank you!

I'm glad to hear the information has been helpful Sue! When baking any sized piece I like to bake for 1 hour or more just to make sure it's cured. Really makes a difference in the hardness and durability of your beads.

Hi! Stumbled onto your site when surfing about pasta machine motors. Wow, what a find! I've been into PC off and on for quite a few years and I'm currently on a bender, if you know what I mean. This particular topic had me thinking about my situation.
I bought a toaster oven many years ago and tried to use it to bake PC. My problem was I could never get the temperature to stabilize enough to get consistent results and ended up with lots of failures (weak pieces, burnt, fuming…) so, I still own it but I haven't used it in years, for anything.
I currently bake my PC stuff in an enameled covered roasting pan in my kitchen oven. The covered pan keeps the fumes from the rest of my oven, so the oven stays food safe. I realized that I never removed the pizza stone I keep in there and this may be why I've had such consistent results. You see, I keep the stone in there to keep the oven temp from fluctuating wildly whenever the door is opened. This works very well for baking food. I would like to try using a stoneware tile or something similar in my toaster oven (something that would fit in the bottom of the oven) to achieve the same effect. Any thoughts?
I would love some feedback. Thanks!

You bring up an excellent point Clarissa! I actually leave a ceramic tile in my toaster oven for the same reasons. It regulates the temp and I bake on it.

I also bake between two ceramic tiles (I call it a tile sandwich) whenever I am baking flat pendants or beads. It protects the piece from scorching and the tiles keep the heat even. (Click the link by my name for more info.)

A good sized tile for a toaster oven is a 6" x 8" rectangle or whatever fits best in your particular one. Make sure is is smooth with no texture or it will transfer to your pieces.

There are pizza stones for toaster ovens but a tile is probably much cheaper.

Clarissa, I'm new to PC and just discovered Cindy's fantastic site myself, so I'm hardly in a position to give advice, BUT I had exactly the same problems with my toaster oven. My first bangle bracelet burnt to a crisp on one side due to an undiscovered hot spot and wild variations in the oven temp! Check out glassattic under the topic "Heat Sink." There you will find information about using ceramic tiles to stabilize the temperature of toaster ovens, along the lines that you are thinking. I followed the advice I found there and have had much more consistent results on the few pieces I've baked since. My oven thermometer now stays much closer to 275°F. Since my DH is chronically afraid of fires, I also baked my last piece for an hour on a bed of baking soda. It came out perfect. Hope this helps. I'm sure Cindy will give you the expert's view as well.

Thanks for the reply!
More questions: When curing, do you put the raw PC directly on the preheated tile? I would think it would be better to place the cool tile in with the raw PC and just put extra baking time.

Clarissa, Cindy has a great blog post on the subject of baking times. I'm sure she will give you the link. I haven't had enough experience to advise you. One thing, though, don't put your item on the tile without a piece of typing paper in between. Items baked directly on a tile will have ugly shiny spots on the bottom which you don't want. HTH.

Sue is right Clarrisa, regular white paper or card stock on the tile will help avoid shiny spots on your beads! (Thanks for helping btw Sue! I appreciate that.)

The link to the article Sue was talking about is right there beside my name. Hope it helps. Feel free to ask questions or type a subject into the search box at the top of this blog, if you need more help.

I've been using a ceramic tile for quite some time now to bake my PC items on. I dont mind the 'ugly shiney back' or anything, but I have a hard time getting my clay pieces off the tile! Is there something I can put down on the tile to make it not sick?

Great question Heather! Put a plain piece of office paper underneath your polymer clay pieces. Not only will they not stick to the tile, the backs won't be ugly and shiny anymore!

I checked out glassattic.com re: heat sinks, but I couldn't find information about where to place the "sink" in relation to the heating element? Would putting it under the base heating element work or should I put it on its own shelf? Would one be more effective than the other?

Thanks!
Mary Beth

Hi Mary Beth,
I'm sure Cindy will correct me if I'm not doing it right but, yes, I put my tiles right under the base heating element in the bottom of my toaster oven. There's just room for two 4" square tiles side-by-side. BTW, you are using an oven thermometer, right? It's essential to have a thermometer you can put right into the toaster oven so that you can check the temperature frequently. It's the only way you'll get an accurate reading on how hot your oven actually is. Hope this helps.
Sue

Excellent advice Sue! Thank you so much!

Mary Beth, if your oven's bottom element is too low to put a tile underneath it (like my toaster oven is), then a tile on the wire rack will work nicely too. I set my bead rack on top of the tile and tent the top with a folded piece of paper (making sure the paper isn't close to the element).

However you use the tiles, they do help with evening out the temp in your oven and avoiding temp spikes.

If you don't already have it, the polymer clay bead making course for beginners would help you a great deal. Click the link by my name for more info.

Hope that helps!

Cindy and Sue – thank you both so much for your help!

Cindy:
I took the advice of one of your writers and baked my clay objects at normal temps for an hour and they came out much harder, not too rubbery. I hate using the extra electricity, but it's worth it. They sand good and tumble good in a vibe tumbler with course and medium media.
Thanks for the tip.
Dean Andrews

You're welcome! I am actually the one that recommends you bake for an hour. Glad to see that it works well for you Dean! It certainly does make for a better product!

What great timing to bring back this subject! I just had a few very unfortunate scorching experiences with my old toaster oven and purchased the Amaco craft one. What I love about this thing is that the temperature can't be set above 300 degrees, and the directions say it take 20 minutes for it to heat up to the temperature you desire. Several problems with it though. It's too small for some projects (scorched the top of a Christmas ball because it stuck up). The timer/on mechanism makes a ticking sound which drives my kids crazy :). Finally it only runs for a max time of 30 minutes before it turns itself off (no continuous on mechanism like most toaster ovens) so you have to monitor the time and turn it immediately back on when it "dings" to extend the baking time. I wish the manufacturer could make a larger size one and add a continuous on feature. Anyone else have experience with this oven, I wonder?

Thanks for the great product review Maria! That really helpful information!

@Cindy Lietz from Liquid Sculpey:

Did I miss how you protect them from scorching? Is the extended time ok for Sculpey 3?

I guess it can't hurt to do a test run.
Thanks for all your info.

@Kayak Sue: The extended time works for all polymer clays, as long as you do not go over the max temperature for that clay. Baking Sculpey III at 265 for an hour should work fine, just make sure that you use an oven thermometer to monitor the temperature (ovens can be off by quite a bit.) Baking on a ceramic tile helps quite a bit, also. Even better — keep an extra tile in the oven at all times. It helps "steady" the temperature, keeping the oven from having to reheat as often and "spiking" the temps!

To prevent scorching, there are several things you can do. Tenting w/paper or foil, covering with cornstarch, baking in a ceramic tile sandwich — these are just a few. Use the search box at the top left side of this page and type in words like "scorch" "burn" "baking" etc. to get articles that cover this topic. Here's an article to start with called Baking your Clay Beads Properly.

It has links to additional baking articles, as well. Don't forget to read the comments, as they often have even more tips that are not in the article.