Cool Tools for Polymer Clay – The Alphadisc Lettering Tool

A polymer clay letter tool that will make a positive impression on your beads and pendants:

Recently I was searching online for a polymer clay letter impression set and came across this cool tool called the Alphadisc. The company that sells it is even called "Cool Tools!" It will quickly impress letters into any type of clay including polymer clay, metal art clay and ceramic clay.

Here's an excerpt transcribed from their tutorial video…

The way it is designed is that all the letters are on the outside of the disc. It will show you which letter you're on, and some little dots, so you know where the center is.

It's pretty easy to use. You just line it up on the clay, and impress the letters. Hold the disc so that you can see right down the letters and impress them exactly in the spot that you want. There is a little space, left and right, where those other letters don't touch.

Look at the letters, so they read correctly to you and write from left to right. Rotate it around to the next letter and impress.

If you want to do something a little bit deeper, just put the clay on a curved surface.

If you like, watch their 6 and 1/2 minute Youtube demonstration and instrucion video here…

A polymer clay tool like this has a few advantages over the more common metal letter punches you would typically use. They are:

• Easily stored – Full alphabet on one disk.
• Lots of Fonts – Can get letters and numbers in a few different fonts, in upper case, lower case, numbers/symbols, and all of those in reverse print for making molds.
• Easy to clean – Wipe with a cloth.
• Versitile – Can be used on polymer clay, metal clay and ceramic clay.
• Easy to center – Little dots help you line up the letters nicely.

Disadvantages:

• Can't be used on metal sheeting like the metal punches can.

As you can see, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages and I give this cool polymer clay tool a thumbs up rating!

SITE NAVIGATION TIP: To call up a list of articles on this blog in which I discuss other cool tools for poly clay, you have three choices:

1) Click here on the "02: Tools" Category Navigation link. This link can also be found in the top left column side bar of every page on this blog.

2) Type in the word "Tools" or the name of a specific tool into the Search Box along the top horizontal navigation bar.

3) At the bottom of each article is a list of tags that often references names of specific tools for polymer clay. For example, click on the this tag to see what happens: Bead Rack