Faux Wood Cane Video | Polymer Clay Tutorial

Oh, Cindy, I forgot to say: SO glad you added Kelli’s inspirational story here! Hope things are going well for you, Kelli…

Oh wow! That’s the best looking faux wood I’ve seen. Sooooo excited to try this. I’d better go make sure I have the right colors (or at least something close to them).:)

This is wonderful ! So much better than using a wood grainer from Home Depot !! This is the real thing – soooooooooo useful ! This is really new to me -can’t wait – did I say that last week,too ? Well, it’s true. Fridays are special -“Cindy’s Tutes”. Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy – see you then……….

I love this tutorial. thanks again for making things so easy :o)

Fantastic tute, as usual Cindy. I had found a different tute on wood grain quite a while ago, and not only was it not as clear and consise as yours, the result was not half as realistic(turned me off after the first try). BUT, Yahoo, thanks to you and Doug am going to be back in the lumber business!

“This is going to be hard on some of you that need to have things absolutely precise” Hah! I had to stop the video cause I was laughing so hard! That is SOOO me… comes in handy for some skills (quilt piecing, counted Xstich) but a bit of a hindrance when we attempt to be “random”… Can’t get my hands on the clay for a while but that won’t stop me from watching your videos, Cindy (even if that gets squeezed in while I exercise LOL)

Ahhhh, the knots are the key to the realism you get! Very nice idea. Also encourage folks to push the color way boundaries, try reds, greens, purples, etc. The wood grain is so apparent and lovely, but, by using out of the norm colors, it causes the whole design to pop.

My complex just completed post storm trimming, and took out all the junior black walnut trees. For some reason, they grow like weeds here. I nearly choked, if they had just let that stuff mature, what a bounty they could reap selling it to wood workers.

Had the maintenance person slice some of the bigger diameter lengths into rounds, can’t wait for them to dry. In addition, now I can’t wait to try and replicate the patterns, as it ages, the color darkens to deep browns and blacks.

Thanks Karon! When Willow baked her spoon, it was too large for the toaster oven, of course. So she covered one of the wire racks in our regular oven with 4″x6″ ceramic tiles, (I think she used 9). On the tiles she placed a sheet of parchment paper. On the paper she placed her spoon and tented it with another sheet of parchment. Hopefully your pieces won’t be longer than the size of your racks, corner to corner. Otherwise you will have to figure out how to bake shorter pieces, that you can glue together after baking. Hope that helps!

I’ve seen other faux wood grain tutorials but never like this. Wow! you never cease to amaze me.

Tiger eye maple? Quarter sawn oak? Silverized teak?

I predict a bump in sales for all wood tones, lol.

Cindy, you should ask Premo to track it…think lots of folks will eagerly try faux wooding over the next little bit.

Very neat to know little Willow’s a big part of it, too.

Im off to work but wanted to watch the tutorial on faux wood making a perfect little 10 minute Play before work. THis is my FAVE tutorial so far. I will be watching again and again. Wish my Dad was alive he was a woodworker and someone mentioned tiger eye and quarter sewn. I wonder if the way you slice it. ie like wood is sliced or what would happen if you put more eyes in it like birds eye maple. Yes I wish premo would track it too. Gosh I wonder how many members there are now. This is the BEST PROGRAM ever. its to the point. and what you learn is incorporated into projects. Yes I love Willows spoon design. Is Willow going to follow in moms footsteps.

Also I wonder if Cindy is going to do some more extensive jewelry teaching. She has me wandering off into that realm as well. and I prob need to stay focused. but see how she is. she gets your creative Play mind going. thanks Cindy. More of Willow’s work available to see. Happy Easter to you.

Hi Mary-Ann,

I’m obviously not Cindy :D but a couple of factors would be the clay brand you’re using — some are stronger than others, some are stiffer than others — and also whether you’re planning for your replacement case to function on its own (e.g. replacing the standard back of the phone entirely) or whether you’re thinking of attaching a decorative polymer clay layer to something like the standard polycarbonate backpiece. (You mention a thin phone case… is it the standard polycarbonate one, or some other material such as a weaker plastic?)

I’ve had a Samsung Galaxy S III for about 15 months, and mine at least isn’t actually that delicate: I’ve dropped it heaps of times, have had it bashed against all sorts of things, and when it’s not in my back pocket it’s usually thrown into a sports bag with nearly 20kg of miscellanea. (Not that I recommend treating it that way! :D) I would suggest protecting it from bending, however, as after 14-1/2 months of being sat upon and pressed against the curve of my buttock the glass developed a crack, although the case itself is fine after all the above ill treatment.

So make sure your replacement case is quite stiff by using a strong clay brand that cures stiff rather than bendy, and/or by having a stiff standard case underneath, and/or by increasing the clay thickness if you are using a bendy brand like Premo in order to counteract the bendiness somewhat.

I hope that helps a bit. :)

Sue

Hi Mary-Ann,

That sounds nice… what a shame it wasn’t quite robust enough!

When you say that your faux burl wood-covered case started to chip away, do you mean:

(1) bits of polymer clay broke away leaving some polymer clay underneath, i.e. it was the polymer clay itself that broke, rather the bond between the polymer clay and the rigid plastic, or the rigid plastic itself; or

(2) bits of the polymer clay veneer you applied started to break away fairly cleanly from the underlying rigid plastic case, i.e. the bond between the polymer clay and the rigid plastic was insufficiently strong to secure and support the polymer clay; or

(3) complete bits of the covered case chipped off, i.e. pieces of polymer clay and rigid plastic broke off together, without the polymer clay veneer separating from the underlying rigid plastic?

If it was scenario 1, i.e. insufficient polymer clay strength, what temperature and time did you use to cure your clay? Premo isn’t the strongest clay but it’s pretty decent, so maybe curing at a more consistent temperature, or at a higher temperature, or for a longer time would be sufficient to give you the strength you need. (I’ve also added some notes below on what I’d do and the stronger clay I’d use, but it brings other factors into play.)

If it was scenario 2, i.e. the polymer clay veneer chipped from the rigid plastic underneath, did you use any kind of glue to attach the polymer clay firmly to the rigid plastic? My expectation is that you would need to do so to get a strong bond between the two, and that depending on the type of glue and the type of underlying rigid plastic, you might possibly need to treat the rigid plastic somehow to ensure a strong bond to it as well. In other words, your clay might have been strong enough for a veneer, just not firmly enough attached.

If it was scenario 3, i.e. pieces of polymer clay and rigid plastic broke off together, you’re even rougher on your phone than I am! As with scenario 1, adjustments to the clay curing process or a stronger clay would probably help, as might a coating of resin, but you might be better off working with a metal case underneath the polymer clay as well.

Anyway…

If I were to attempt this myself I’d use Kato clay… and not just because it’s my favourite! However, I’d also use a metal case underneath the polymer clay rather than a plastic one.

Some of the reasons that make Kato my favourite clay make it most suitable for this kind of thing too in my opinion. Kato is quite a bit stronger than Premo when cured properly — noting that Kato must be cured at a minimum temperature of 150C/300F for proper strength, i.e. noticeably higher than Premo’s curing temperature — and it’s also much, much stiffer.

Kato’s high curing temperature is actually one of the reasons why I’d apply my decorative polymer clay veneer to a metal case rather than a plastic one, although the added strength of the metal is a bonus. If I were to use a plastic case I’d probably be looking at a polycarbonate one for its relative strength, but polycarbonate deforms at the temperatures needed to cure Kato properly which imposes logistical difficulties. I couldn’t bake the Kato polymer clay on the polycarbonate backpiece because the backpiece would deform. I could use the polycarbonate backpiece to make a temperature-safe support on which to bake the Kato polymer clay, and I could then take advantage of Kato’s reheat-and-reshape versatility to glue it tightly and cleanly to the polycarbonate backpiece, but that’d be a lot of stuffing around.

I like mixing my own colours, but if you don’t then Kato has another downside for the faux burl wood technique you mentioned (which I love too). Kato and Premo appear to have applied different philosophies in setting their colour ranges. With Kato the expectation is that you’ll mix your own colours: there are only a limited number of packaged colours although they’re well suited to logical colour mixing, and you’d definitely need to mix up your own component colours for the faux burl wood. Premo, on the other hand, has a large number of packaged colours including some lovely metallics and pearlescents, and seems more set up for people using colours straight out of the packet. You can make the same standard, metallic and pearlescent colours with Kato that you can with Premo, but you have to mix them yourself.

As for the clay thickness I’d use, if I were applying a Kato polymer clay veneer to a metal backpiece, I’d probably go for a thickness of about 0.5mm (i.e. very thin!). I’d bake it on the metal backpiece at 160C/320F (which will make it even stronger than the usual Kato curing temperature of 150C/300F) for 30-40 minutes, then once it had cooled I’d prise it off, apply suitable glue, and glue it back to the metal (polymer clay won’t bond strongly to metal). I’d probably consider finishing it with a coating of clear resin too, for a shiny finish and a bit of extra strength.

With Kato I’d also consider making a backpiece from scratch, i.e. purely from Kato with no commercial backpiece underneath it, with the polymer clay being structural as well as decorative. Judging by large thin pieces I’ve made in the past, Kato should be strong enough and stiff enough for this to work although I’d need to experiment a bit to determine an optimum thickness. The main difficulty with this approach would be forming it precisely enough that the fully-home-made backpiece attached securely and tidily to the phone body, and on balance I’d be almost certain to be “lazy” and veneer a metal case as described above instead.

If I were using Premo, I’d still use a metal backpiece underneath a polymer clay veneer, but I’d make the polymer clay veneer thicker at about 1mm. I’d bake it on the metal backpiece at 135C/275F for an hour, then do the rest as described above for the Kato veneer (cool, prise, glue, and maybe coat with resin).

But I must emphasise that I haven’t actually tried making such an item! (I’m boring and really like the plain slate blue of the standard Galaxy S III case ;D) Hopefully someone with direct experience in what you’re after will chime in.

Hi Christine, glad you liked the tutorial! As for colors to use for a darker wood, I like to use different combinations of Burnt Umber, Gold, Raw Sienna, Bronze, Copper and a touch of Black. You can really use any color combo you like. Just make sure to include some metallic or pearl colors to keep the wood from looking flat and try to vary the colors so there is some contrast between layers. Otherwise you won’t be able to see the grain. Go to Google images to get some wood grain inspiration if you like. The combinations are endless!

Hi Sandy, that is an interesting idea! I haven’t tried that before so I don’t know how hard it would be to get the same look as wood. Polymer clay would be a different hardness once baked and it wouldn’t have the grain, but it would definitely be soft enough to carve. I could see it having possible issues with air pockets and chips, but you should try it.

If it were me, rather than going from a solid block, I would shape it into the general form (like a blocky head shape for example) and the cave in the details after it was baked. That way you would waste less clay and have fewer issues with cracks, air pockets and stuff like that.

Do try it though. You have nothing to lose and knowledge to gain! Let me know how it goes!

You’re welcome! :)