Baking Polymer Clay Pendants in a Ceramic Tile Sandwich

To avoid trapping air bubbles in your flat sheet of clay, you first need to condition it properly using a polymer clay pasta machine.

Cindy last blog post..When Baking Beads, It's OK to Sometimes Break the Rules

When baking polymer clay items that need to be flat can you also use one of those new non-stick baking sheets that they are selling or will they leave a funky residue or "shine" on the bead?

If you are baking them with the ceramic tiles do you have to increase or decrease the baking time?

Are you talking about one of those silicon mats like the Silpat liners? I'm not sure if they would be good or not. Might be great… might be horrible… would have to test that.

When you bake on a ceramic tile it does even out the temperature so you can bake it longer. I recommend baking for way longer than the package says. To learn more on that technique click on the 'baking beads' link by my name.

Where can you get a couple of ceramic tiles?

Places Like Home Depot and many tile shops, sell single ceramic tiles. The color doesn't matter though they should be as smooth as possible so texture doesn't get transferred to the clay.

Does the baking time change using the ceramic tiles? I'm concerned my pieces may have not baked long enough sandwiched in between two ceramic tiles. Is there a way to tell if a polymer clay piece is baked long enough?

It is a good idea to increase the baking time when baking between tiles. I always bake all my beads for 1 hr anyways so this seem to be adequate. You can't really tell that easy if your clay is baked hard enough without breaking it, though it does feel harder and sands nicer when it is baked right. Kind of something you get a feel for over time. Thanks for the comment Lisa!

Thank you Cindy for your answer! Wow, you bake your beads for an hour! That is great to know. I was afraid to bake too long, thought it would burn the clay. And that was going to be another question on mine… how can you rebake pieces (after adding raw clay to it) without burning the previously baked piece. But, I guess that burning the clay has only to do with the oven temperature? Would an hour at 275 degrees be safe?

Yes Lisa. You can re-bake your beads as many times as you like. It is more about temp than time. I like to bake at 265 though, seems to work for me. For more info on baking for a longer time, click on the link by my name.

Cindy,

Last night I attempted to do a pendant with an Acrylic Floor Finish. I mixed the future floor polish with a little Pearl Ex powder and applied it to the clay. After the polish was dry and the piece finished I was on to baking. I did the "sandwich" sort-of…I forgot to put wax paper between piece and tile and it Stuck to the tile. So….when I attempt this again will the floor polish stick to either wax paper or cardstock???
Or do I have to bake without "sandwiching" the piece.
Hope this makes sense. THanks for any direction you can send me in.

Thank you for your comment Shelly! That's too bad that happened to you.

It is important to put the Future floor finish on after you have baked, sanded and buffed your piece. If you try to put it on before it has been baked, the clay won't cure properly and everything will also stick.

I know some people like to put their finished baked pieces with Future on them and stick them back into the oven to harden, so this is probably where the confusion came from. In that case the piece is hung from a bead rack so the finish doesn't stick to anything.

You were right to try and sandwich your piece with the tiles, just don't put the future on at this stage. Also don't use wax paper because the wax will stick to the clay as well. Use regular office paper or parchment paper instead and you will have great success.

Make sure to read some baking articles on this blog. If you type 'baking' into the search box at the top of this blog, you will get a whole list of articles.

Let me know if you need any more help.

I know I'm a newbie but this trick I use may help someone. When I'm baking multiple flat pieces that are of different thicknesses, I put them all on an 8×10 piece of ceramic tile with parchment paper, clustering pieces of like thicknesses. Then - I use a "lid" tile for each grouping - I have 2×2 and 4×4 tiles- and I mix and match over the parchment paper so the lid tile rests evenly over all the pieces under it. So all the pieces that are a size 3 from the pasta machine are under one tile, and all those that are a 5 are under another, etc. That way my lids come into contact with the pieces evenly. Having tiles of several sizes is really helpful.

I hope that's making sense! I hadn't read it anywhere yet, but like most things in the world, I suspect it's not an original thought ;-) Synchronicity rules!

edie

Nice tips Edie! Thanks for sharing them!