Polymer Clay Tutorial | Taking Apart And Cleaning A Pasta Machine

Thank you so much for this!
I know I have needed to clean the machine for so long but I was clueless!

Happy New Years to you, you wonderful woman!
It has been my pleasure to get to know you.

Thank you Shannon! You are a delightful talent… the pleasure is all mine!

Hope your New Year is filled with squeaky clean pasta machines and never again will there be nasty streaks in your Skinner Blends!! Hmmm… if a non-clayer read that they would be very alarmed and confused! ;-)

"nasty streaks in your Skinner Blends!!" Very cute, Cindy!!! Just don't try to put your streaked skinner blends in the washing machine!!! LOL!!!

Thanks, Cindy. I think I'll clean my pasta machine on a day when I am feeling quite peaceful and not at all irritated so I put it back together correctly! You made the mystery of the pasta machine seem like a fairly easy task, thanks much!

Hugs to you, Cindy E.

Yeah it's a good idea to clean your machine regularly. You would not believe the gunk that gets piled up behind the scrapers! The first time I cleaned mine there was about 3 or 4 beads worth in there!

Thanks for the video on cleaning the pasta machine. One question though…don't you need the fins to guide the the clay through the machine? Or is it easy enough to guide the clay without them? I haven't cleaned mine because of that simple reason. What if I couldn't put those fins back on…wouldn't it be difficult to guide the clay through the machine. I guess I will have to try that and see how it goes.

Actually Lupe, you don't need the fins at all to feed the clay in. I think it is a little easier even, since you can see the rollers so well when the fins are off!

Thank you so much for the video on taking my pasta machine apart and cleaning it. I've been working with polymer clay for a few months and was going to go out and buy a couple of spares, not now.

Glad to be of help Paul. Thank you for your comment!

Thanks this was very helpful,, I have heard people say tiny important pieces to the PM going everywhere when they have tried to open up their PM's so I was reluctant to even think about opening mine up… Your video really put those fears at ease… I not only opened and cleaned my current PM, but open my first PM that had stopped working smoothly and thought it was a lost,, was able to fix the first PM just find that inside some of the nuts had become loose and just needed to be re tightened so the gears would line up correctly…

Big help thanks…

That is so great to hear Patricia! I especially loved hearing you fixed your old broken pasta machine too! Now you can use one for light colors and one for dark if you want!

I cleaned my machine last night and thought I would go crazy.
The covers that you took off and left off, I need to help hold in the scrapers, mine does not have the little tabs at the ends. I just hope the scrapers are bace in position correctly. Wouldn't you know I'd get an oddball pasta machine.:)

I leave my scrapers as well as the fins off – is this bad? :(

Not if it works Kimberly! Will have to try that next time I clean my machine!

Great! Trust me… I had more problems with the scrapers than I did with the fins. They collect so much clay, and the only way to get rid of the clay stuck behind the scrapers is to take the whole damn thing apart… so leaving them off is the best way to go if you don't like taking apart your machine a lot. :)

I enjoy taking it apart and putting it back together, though… I am into machines and how they work, and especially putting things together – must have been the lego when I was a kid! :)
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Well, I discovered how to put mine back together again, I was having trouble fitting the scrapers back on, since unlike in the video, my scrapers didn't have the little tabs to slot back into the machine. Mine has two thick peices of metal that look something like hairpins, here they're (for lack of a better word) springs that hold the scrapers in place. Once I figured that out everything else went just like in the cleaning video.
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Oh and I also now have the covers removed, they weren't needed to hold the scrapers in.

That is excellent Kimberly and Ken! I can't imagine how people can use these darn machines for making real pasta in if they are such a pain to keep clean. I would imagine there would be all kinds of flour and egg gunk in behind the scrapers the way they are designed. That is one very good thing about the new pasta machine Polymer Clay Express is designing. No fins, no scrapers, no problem!

No fins? No scrapers? Wow! What a dream machine! Hehehe.

You know, that might make a good name for it! ;-)

Cindy: I've taken the "fenders", "fins" or whatever you call them off – and now the clay sticks to the rollers and I can't use the pasta machine. What am I doing wrong? I would really appreciate advice. Thank you so much – Beverly Sims
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@Beverly

Did you replace the "blades" that go along side the rollers?
If you have four peices removed then the scrapers weren't put back, it's these scrapers that help keep the clay from getting stuck on the rollers.

@Beverly: Sorry Beverly to have taken a bit to get back to you. It has been pretty hectic around here.

Ken is right about needing the scrapers. I know in the post up above there was talk about no scrapers, but that is for pasta machines that are designed to not need them.

Most pasta machines need the scrapers, at least mine does. When I took them off to try it, the clay just rolled around and around the rollers. The scrapers on most machines keep that from happening. I think the ones that don't use scrapers, have non stick rollers. But I can't be positive on that.

You can leave the 2 fins off, like I showed you in the video, but put the scrapers back on and you should have no problem. Hopefully you will be able to find them!

@Ken: Thank you Ken so much for getting to Beverly before I could! You are a tremendous help around here! :-)

Anytime, I was hoping that I wasn't stepping on your toes since it was addressed to you. I remember how frustrated I was when I took mine apart to clean it only to discover that it was built differently that yours and I couldn't initally figure out how to get the blades back on. If I can help I chime in.

Ken I would never see you as stepping on my toes! You are a tremendous asset around here. I appreciate your help a lot! I can barely keep up anymore so any help I receive is very helpful.Thank you so much!

You're welcome.

I got lines through the sheet of clay when i went past the midway mark. Any ideas why this might happen? I'm wondering if it is because the machine was not very level? i could not use the clamp provided with the clay machine because my table was thicker than the clamp allowed so my husband clamped it down in the center. I found out later that it was lifting up on one side a bit.
I know this questions sounds silly but I've looked for tables at walmart, canadian tire . they are either too thick or the work tables are very narrow. I don't want to be spending money just getting a table. Any suggestions to solve that problem or what kind of table i could get?

@Cheryl Hodges: Hi Cheryl, this might be something you've already tried, but just in case — what about buying a couple of C-clamps from the hardware store? You can buy them in various sizes, and clamp down your pasta machine on both sides of whatever thickness table you want. They cost just a buck or two.

What kind of lines in your clay are you talking about? Those little horizontal ones that are just 1 or 2 mm apart? Or is it a "colored" line, perhaps caused by dirty rollers or scrapers?

it's the horizontal lines not a clored line. Also the clay kind of buckles up a bit there. I do have the clamp that came with the clay machine but it doen't fit the table as the table is way to thick.

As for the clamps, buy a couple of bigger C-clamps (they're cheap at hardware stores) that will fit your table. As for those horiz. lines, what do you mean about getting them "when you go past midway mark." Do you mean medium thickness? As far as the rippling, that can happen with really thin sheets of clay. Or, if you're having lots of trouble with it at higher settings, your rollers might be misaligned. Have you always had these troubles, or is this something new?

@Cheryl:
One of my pasta machines leaves faint horizontal impressions in the clay every few millimetres, particularly at the larger/coarser settings, but it only does it on the front/top of the clay. So I just flip the clay over when it comes out of the pasta machine so that the other, less intuitive side is on top, and that's always nice and smooth. Is there any chance that might be a workaround with yours too?

HOT TIP ALERT: Click on the link by my name to see how Cherie uses white clay to clean her pasta machine rollers.