Video #399: When your clay is too soft, sticky or squishy… there are quick and easy ways to firm it up.
Topics Covered In This Video:
- In a previous video not too long ago, I talked about buying fresh polymer clay. Sometimes that means the clay is very soft and squishy, and may be difficult to work with for some polymer clay techniques, especially caning.
- In this video I will show you how you can remove the excess plasticizers and oils (leaching) making the clay much firmer.
- Role out your soft squishy clay with your pasta machine to make a sheet.
- Place the sheet of clay between two sheets of plain white office paper (no printing on it) and set on a non-porous surface for a day or so, for the excess oils to soak into the paper, making the clay firmer.
- Don’t set your clay and paper onto a porous surface like a wood table or a stack of books… or they will get stained by the oils.
- I like to weight mine down with some ceramic tiles, to speed up the leaching process.
- For a faster way, roll out your sheet of soft clay and put it in between a folded piece of paper, and run it through the pasta machine (paper and all), to force the paper to soak up the oils more quickly. You may need a clay blade to scrape the clay off the paper, but you will find this quick method to be much faster than having to wait for a day or so for the leaching to happen on its own.
Question of the Day:
Have you ever had a soft squishy block of polymer clay that you didn’t know what to do with? And do you think this tip would be helpful for you?
I look forward to hearing from you.
By the way, if you have a polymer clay question or challenge you’d like me to address in an upcoming video, do post it in the comments below. I’d love to help you find quicker and easier ways to bring up the professionalism in your polymer clay art.
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Looking forward to hearing from you!
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Thanks for your email, Cindy! I got it!! Sorry to cause more work for you, but when I can’t get my Friday Polymer Clay Tutor I am depressed… love being able to learn from you.
By the way I received almost $ 900.00 in donations for the American Belarussian Relief Organization (my family sponsors a child every summer) from the polymer eggs a friend of mine and I did this spring! That is almost a full plane fare for one. We had 32 polymer clay covered, blown, chicken eggs. Went home without even one left!
~Carol
You are very welcome. Thanks for the kind words.
And thank you for posting about your Polymer Clay donation activities. It is wonderful to see that Polymer Clay is playing such a significant role for you and your charity.
I’m egging you on to keep up the great work :-)
When faced with my ding-ness (by miss spelling my own name of all things- repeatedly thanks to auto-fill—BTW a Big Thank You to Doug who figured it out ) I decided to go ahead and change my Gravatar photo to this years visit with my nephew, Jason, from Germany
Tante is German for aunt and for the last six and a half years he has been the only one — that is till sometime around the end of this coming Aug. when they are due to have another little one:)
Any who (I just love that Cindy-ism ) Doug said this would be a good time to change my name here also as he would be on the lookout I really thought about just using Sherry L but I have an Etsy shop named Tantesherry’s Shop & even though it is empty now who knows what the future holds….hopefully I’ll be able to separate my name over there as easily as here
Thanks Cindy. I use this method (the slower method) and it works very well. I hadn’t thought of the quicker method, great idea! I recently purchased some Kato clay and love it for making canes. The smell isn’t great, but the consistency is awesome. I think everyone who works with polymer clay should sign up and be a paid subscriber to your site, it is inexpensive and you share a wealth of knowledge. I made a hair/mirror mini mosaic yesterday, and it turned out great. Thank you. Melodie
Great tips for leaching! Thank you for both techniques.
Hope everyone here at PCT is enjoying their summer (or winter if you live in the Southern Hemi), lol!
Thanks Cindy for that great tip for leaching clay. I never would of thought to put it between paper and run it through the pasta machine. I’m so glad you have these little studio tips, they are real gems!
I normally use a variation of the first approach: I sheet the clay thinly to start with (to maximise the clay/paper contact area), and I also use several sheets of copier paper (usually four) on each side of the sheeted clay. I pile heavy books on top (probably 5kg worth; maybe a bit more).
Using several sheets of paper makes quite a difference to the plasticiser absorption rate, at least with the brand of copier paper I buy (Reflex). When the first sheet becomes saturated there is other equally aborbent material in contact across the whole of the saturated area, versus just at the edges of that area as is the case when you have a single sheet of paper with a non-porous surface right next to it. (An analogy is using kitchen paper towels to soak up oil from deep fried food: you can put a single sheet on top and press and wait and press some more, but if you put another sheet on top of that you’ll quickly absorb more oil.)
The time I leave it depends on how soft the clay is to start with, but it’s often somewhere between 1 and 3 hours. On the two occasions I left it overnight the clay was so over-leached that I had to work a whole lot of liquid clay into it to get it back to a workable-but-firm consistency!
I do use the pasta machine approach sometimes, mainly when I’m in a major hurry and need somewhat-leached clay instantly. It’s definitely quicker if only a small to moderate amount of leaching is required, but I generally prefer to avoid the pasta machine wrangling involved.
I have a question…my problem is total opposite…what do you do when the clay turns to total dust. I had a package of premo 18k gold; it was very hard so I put it in the food processor with some sculpey clay softner hoping to soften it up of course. But lo and behold it turned to dust. Tried using as an inclusion but it didn’t do anything. So any other ideas?
Wow, Teresa, that is some nasty clay, lol. Two things have worked for me.
First, scoop up the clay and put it in a Glad sandwich baggie and add more clay softener, squeezing until you get the mixture to start combining. Sometimes, if you leave the clay in the bag with a softener well mixed through for a couple of days, it brings it together.
The second thing I’ve done is to mix it with 1/4 as much soft translucent clay. Again, if it doesn’t start combining in the baggie immediately, let it sit for a bit.
If it still doesn’t soften to run through the pasta machine, you could just chop it up and use the inclusions in Cindy’s lovely Jupiter Beads. Little gold bits scattered through out the extruded snakes would make scrumptious beads.
Or, you could chop it up with other colors and make some great Mirror Image Heart Beads.
Once all the clay is baked, it’s easy to sand.
Wish you success….
Perfect advice for Tereasa… thanks Jocelyn!!
I wonder if the problem I am having this morning id related to the topic, I bought a new 8 oz block of premo black and every time I run it through the pasta machine it sticks to the rollers and I mean STICKS, I have to scrape it off, if I rub a little baby oil on then I can run it through a couple of times before it happens again. I tried other clay and it now it too sticks, was there something in the black that coated my rollers or is there something wrong with them? I only use baby wipes and alcahol to clean them so I don’t know of anything I could have done to ruin them. Has anyone else had this problem. It is just the right consistancy but I wonder if I should try leaching anyway just a little. Boy do I need help, that is even more than usual, lol
Hi Cheryl,
Don’t use baby oil, because that’s actually effectively a solvent and a softener for polymer clay, so it’s probably making the problem worse once it starts getting worked into the clay.
There is possibly a build-up of clay (and baby oil now) behind the scrapers at the bottom of the pasta machine, contributing to causing the other clay to stick. Depending on the type of pasta machine you might be able to remove them for cleaning, but that can be tricky, as can getting them back on! I’ve also had quite a bit of success at cleaning those areas using the blunt end of a bamboo skewer, stuck in from underneath.
Once you’ve cleaned out any residual clay and baby oil as best you can, you could try cooling the clay a bit before rolling it through the pasta machine if you don’t want the clay to be firmer from leaching for when you work it.
The Makin’s Ultimate Clay Machine has non-stick, slightly textured rollers, which might also be an option. But be aware that I’ve found them to be the most easily broken “pasta” machine that I’ve ever used… and I’ve broken a lot of them! (I use firm Kato clay, however, which stresses them a lot more than softer Premo.)
I hope that helps,
Sue
Great advice for Cheyrl, Sue! Thanks for helping her out!
Thanks Sue, I did clean it out and used rubbing alcahol then left it alone for a couple of days. I tried it again tonite and it worked well until I got to a 7 setting then stuck again, I have the sculpey with the lgst setting being at 1 and until now never had a reason to go past 6 I guess I just won’t go that thin again and can’t imagine needing to most of the time, at a 7 you can practically see through the clay. I used the baby oil to loosen up the clay stuck behind the rollers and finally got enough out to make a REALLY big ball of scrap clay and then used the rubbing alcahol to clean the baby oil away..I have an extra kitchen pasta machine in the pantry that has never been used and can always get it out if I need to but for now the sculpey works just fine, that is, up to a 6, so far I have had no problems and I have put some pretty thick pieces through it.
Thanks for this great tip Cindy. Yes, I’ve had problems simply putting clay through the pasta machine at a thin setting where the clay keeps sticking to itself and getting into a real mess. I did think about getting some Kato clay as it’s supposed to be far less sticky, but it’s not so easy to get here in the UK, so you’ve solved two problems for me! Thanks again – Marion
Hi Marion,
When working at thin settings on my current (Atlas 150) pasta machine with softer clay like Premo, I let the clay rest/cool for a while before the first thin rolling, and also for a little while between subsequent thin rollings. That makes a big difference in avoiding the clay sticking to itself without needing to leach it.
I didn’t have to do that with most of my other pasta machines, but the metal on the rollers of the Atlas is different so that may be a factor. (On the plus side, however, the metal on the Atlas rollers doesn’t cause the chemical reaction-based clay discolouration that I’ve experienced with almost all of the other pasta machines I’ve gone through.)
I also don’t have to do that with Kato, but as you noted you might not be able to get it easily, and in any case even Kato-philes like me use other clays at times. :D
Sue
HI sue,
I have never heard of the discoloration problem,….I will try putting the clay in the fridge before I need to roll it out at a 7 or smaller, thanks for that adviceas well as the rest you always have such good and helpful things to contribute As for now I’m going to take a break for a couple of days and finish the mosaic on the seat and back of an antique wooden side chair for my daughters b-day.
Just glorious low temps today, yay!
Along the leaching lines, really had mush yesterday, too much MixQuik, and needed to finish so grabbed #6 melitta filter cone, made the clay a triangle, and just put a cookbook on it for an hour.
I was amazed how much and how quickly it pulled out the excess. Caution because some of the filters out there are fibrous and might not work, but, Melitta puts out a good product.
THANKS CINDY.
YOUR FIRM-UP VIDEO # 399 WAS VERY HELPFUL.
I HAVE USED THIS TECHNIQUE IN THE PAST AND HOPE IT WILL HELP.
I THINK TH WEIGHT ON THE PAPER AND CLAY IS CRITICAL.
THANKS, GEORGE M