Video #675: This cool looking retro or vintage cane project, never seems to get old. And… it is so easy to do!
Topics Covered In This Video:
- In today’s PcT Mini Tute, I’m going to show you how to do an Extruder Mod Cane.
- We have been talking a lot about extruders lately, so I thought I would show you a neat cane you can make, using your extruder.
- I am going to use my Lucy Clay CzeXtruder, but you can use any of the other extruders that are out there.
- I haven’t done a mod cane for quite a while, so the examples I dug up are pretty lame.
- Basically a mod cane is a cane made up of long logs (square or round) that have the colors in rings. And depending on how you stack the colors of clay in the barrel of the extruder, will depend on how they come out.
- You can actually extrude these mod ring logs in any shape.
- I used the med-large square die from set #6 from the Lucy Clay Dies, but you could use whatever square die you would like from the other companies sets instead, if you wish.
- You can even use this technique to make something as detailed as this little flower cane here, that I showed how to make in the Cynthia Tinapple Extruder Disks video.
- I’m going to be using a square die because they stack nicely together into a square cane.
- I’m going to be using several different colors of Souffle clay. Pistachio, Turnip, Mai Tai, Robin’s Egg and Igloo.
- I rolled it out at the thickest setting of my pasta machine, which is about a 6-7 playing card thickness.
- Then cut out some circles using the end of my extruder barrel. Hold thumb over the end to create an airlock so the clay doesn’t get stuck in the tube… or blow it out with your mouth if it does get stuck.
- It is important to know how you are going to stack your clay… if you want a certain color to wrap around the outside of your extrusions, then you need to put it at the end closest to the die… adding a little more so that it can stretch the length of the cane. I used three circles of Igloo first, then stacked one of each color after that until I had enough to extrude.
- Roll the stack a little smaller so it can fit inside the barrel.
- Place die in the end and extrude the clay until you run out.
- Trim the end of the extruded log until you can start seeing the colored rings. (I should have trimmed the end as well because the last little part was kind of messed up and not in rings. Perhaps this was because of the largeness of the die, since I have never had that happen on the smaller dies I have used.).
- Cut equal lengths and stack into a cane.
- Related Article: Making A Mod Cane Using a Polymer Clay Extruder
- Related Video: Review of the Lucy Clay CzeXtruder
- Related Video: Cynthia Tinapple Polymer Clay Extruder Disks
- Related Video: Sculpey Souffle Polymer Clay Product Review
Do you have any suggestions for videos on tips, techniques or products you would like to learn more about? Let me know in the comments section below!
My goal is to help you to learn 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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Thank you sincerely for sharing this! Canes have intimidated me so much that I’ve not tried them, but THIS one seems easy, so I will most certainly try it. Thank you again!
Hi Cindy, Great mini tut, I am definitely going to try it.
Wow. I’ve seen these but always assumed you made a bunch of extruded “noodles” wrapped with sheets of colors. LOL. Glad I watched this.
Hi Cindy!
Always new things to learn from you – thanks so much! And here I ‘d only used my extruder for finer solid colored parts of a project i.e. hair, mini squares, etc. I printed out a picture, several years ago, of this massive canes ‘wall art’ that resembled stained glass and thought of all the work but here it seems easy-peasy this way! Is it the weekend yet to get playing with this!! – thanks again.
Thanks for a great video Cindy. I even went back and watched the your original Mod Cane Tutorial from Feb. 2009. I believe it was Vol.#9.
BTW I love watching your U-Tube videos on my Samsung Smart TV in 50″ hi resolution. I wish I could do the same for all your Library videos. Maybe a Google Chromecast or similar. I am sure Doug will know the answer.
Cindy,
Can you tell me the name of the company or brand of your plastic drawer system and where you can purchase. I love it. Thanks!
Hi Joni, that unit was made by Mastercraft… a brand at Canadian Tire, one of our Canadian Big Box Stores.
Here is the link for more info… Plastic Drawers
There are probably tons of other places you can get these too if you look around. They are great though… I would not be without them now!
Cindy – Thank you so much. I am going to check these out for sure. Thanks again!
There are really similar ones at Wal-mart in the tool area. I love them.
Not sure if you are n the US but I bought the same drawer system at K-mart and Harbor Freight. When I needed more drawer systems found them at K-mart online with free shipping because I spend more that $50.00. I think it is free shipping all the time if you have them delivered to the store. I am sure Sears has them also.
If you plan on using a multi-drawer cabinet for bead or findings storage and you want to divide each drawer, here’s a thing to watch out for with most of them.
I bought the Akro-Mils 64 small drawer cabinet from Home Depot but it only comes with 8 small dividers. I had to buy a pack of dividers separately as I needed all the drawers to be divided. Having so few dividers may be fine for clay storage but it’s a nuisance for itty bitty items :-)