Video #729: A unique alternative to polymer clay, with much superior properties for fine-art sculpted projects and creations.
TIn today’s video I am going to demo a new product called BeeSPutty Plastic. It is a oven-hardened modeling putty that has the consistency of Beeswax for sculpting, but can be baked to a hard plastic for permanency.
It was invented by a German Sculptor by the name of Stefan Neihues-Ellermann, who found that sculpting with Epoxy Putty was too restrictive because of the short working time before it hardened up. And Polymer Clay isn’t the best for doing highly detailed sculpting. What he really wanted was a material that had the same properties as sculpting with soft beeswax, but the permanency of the hardening clays and putties. So he came up with a solution… BeeSPutty Plastic.
It is much different than any of the polymer clays I have worked with. The sticky pliable waxiness of this prodcut is perfect for sculpting. It sticks to itself very well… raw clay to raw clay… as well as raw clay to baked.
BeeSPutty can be baked in stages and new clay can be added and rebaked as many times as you wish.
There are similarities to polymer clay in that you can mix colors… and it doesn’t dry out or air harden, so you can take as long as you need to finish the piece, before baking. You can carve, drill, sand and buff, much like polymer clay, though a unique feature is that once baked, you can easily buff with a soft brush or cloth to a high shine, without the sanding that is required for polymer clay. Also perfect for sculpting.
On the other hand, it is not the most ideal medium for certain polymer clay techniques. For example, BeeSPutty is too sticky for pasta machines, unless you are constantly cleaing the rollers. And it is way too soft for caning. I can see some uses for bead making… especially sculpted beads, since it is perfectly suited for sculpting. It also may be good for some of the faux techniques and other small projects like making fairy doors, miniatures and that kind of thing.
It comes in some basic sculpting formulas that are gray or gray-green in color, with 4 firmness levels… Regular (light gray), Firm (dark gray), Summer Firm for warmer temps (gray-green) and now a new one called Summer Firm Xtra (green-gray) which apparently bakes at a higher temp and is stronger.
There is also 2 opaque colors (White and Bone), 1 Metallic (Gold), and Translucent colors (Translucent, Skin, Black, Brown, Pink-magenta, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue and Purple). The Translucent is a lovely frosted White that shows NO signs of flaws or placquing. Nice!
The colors are easily mixable and seem to be based on the primary colors rather than artist pigments. The colors bake true and have very little to no color shift after baking.
I baked my samples at the recommended temperature of 115C (239F) for 30 minutes. However, I believe these numbers will need to be adjusted for optimal strength, because although the test samples in the video were nice and hard with flexibility on the thin pieces, they did snap quite easily when bent all the way. I have heard others speaking about the high strength of BeeSPutty, so I believe they either baked at a higher temperature, or they baked for a longer amount of time. Further testing will need to be done to determine which one, if not both, will be the case.
Overall, I find this clay to be an extremely interesting product that is especially suited for sculpting, rather than being an all purpose clay like Premo, Fimo or Kato Polyclay. I look forward to doing further testing and experimenting in the future.
- Related Resource: BeeSPutty Website
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- Related Video: Comparing Translucent Polymer Clay Brands
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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This looks like a really interesting product. I’d love to see what you come up with on other ways of using it.
Thanks again Team Lietz!
Hi Cindy..
Is the finish on the Beespuddy one could wear against the skin, such as in jewelry, and not feel sticky or leave a residue? Could it, in your opinion, be used for jewelry making?
Hi Louise, the BeeSputty would be just fine for wearing against the skin… it doesn’t feel sticky or anything once it is baked. It would be great for jewelry as long as it was baked long enough to be strong. I still haven’t had the chance to test how long is the ideal time, but I am guessing an hour would probably do it.
Thanks Cindy,
I don’t plan to jump on the product right now, I’ll wait until you experiment with it a bit and see what you have to say about it later.
Thank you for all the products you introduce us to.
Louise
Thanks, Cindy. Love hearing about all these new and related clay products, so exciting!
Thanks Jocelyn! Glad you liked the video!
Hi Cindy I was looking at your Beesputty review.Perhaps while you are experimenting. Can you mix Beesputty with Sculpy, to make Sculpy more sticky And thus a better sculpting medium? I live in Canada and would go get some if I could find it here.
Thanks
Bruce
Hi Bruce, I haven’t tried that combination specifically but I would definitely do some testing with it, if you have some. I once took a whole bunch of brands of clay (which included SculpeyIII and BeesPutty) and mixed them together in one marbled sheet and baked it at 275F to see what would happen, and it worked just fine, which was surprising actually. All the clays baked together into quite a strong piece. So, my thought is that it should work with only two brands… but of course it would be important to test that to be sure. Let me know if you end up experimenting with this and how it turns out.
cindy I cannot wait to try.. this is awesome that you are promoting or sharing the bees puty that you are willing to share this….. I love all your posts. esp this one. thank you and cudos to someone who is willing to promote and share.
Thanks Patty I appreciate the kind words! :)
Hi, Cindy-
I just watched your BeesPutty video, and also looked at the BeesPutty website itself. I found myself wondering how I go about ordering BeesPutty, since the site lists everything in Euros, and I’m ordering from the U.S. in American dollars on PayPal. Does the site automatically translate your U.S. dollar payment into Euros? How do I know if I’m sending the right $ amount fo equal the Euro amount? Thanks in advance for any info you can provide on this!
Hi Mike, sorry for the slow delay in getting back to you. Sometimes there is just too much to do! In regards to the Beesputty, I just checked hi site and it does look like he only has the prices listed in Euros, so you may need to use a currency converter to know the price you would be paying in American dollars. There is information about shipping internationally, which he does ship to the USA and pretty much every country, so you will be able to buy his clay if you really want to try it. (I had to click “translate this page” and click the shipping tab to find the info.) As far as paypal, I could tell exactly, since I didn’t put anything in my cart. If you search for Beesputtty on Facebook, you could message him directly and get all the answers you need. He is a great guy and very approachable, I am sure he will help you.
Cindy-
Thanks much for reply. I checked out the things you suggested, and all went well when I ordered my Beesputty. I actually found that the easiest way to do this foreign-currency order was to simply order the item, use PayPal to pay for it, and PayPal automatically converted the order into $ for me. Didn’t realize it would be so easy!
Thanks again for your help!
Mike Alsperger
Hi again, Cindy–
Have you ever tried or reviewed Cosclay yet? It supposedly just came out at the beginning of 2019; I’ve heard quite a bit about it from sources other than the Cosclay company itself. This clay, like BeesPutty, is supposed to be similar to polmer clay. However, Cosclay is supposed to remain very flexible after baking. I just saw that Cosclay now has a website….it must have just been put up recently, because I’ve checked for it in the past and never found anything. I’m very interested to hear a review of this stuff. Thanks again, Cindy!
Hi again Mike, it just so happens that I was sent some CosClay, and will be doing a LIVE unboxing this week (October 21, 2019 at 11AM Pacific) on our Polymer Clay Tutor Facebook Page if you would like to tune it at that time. I will of course be testing it as well, and will share my feedback in future live broadcasts over the coming weeks. Arnold is doing a Kickstarter for it at the End of October, so stay tuned for that! I have heard and seen some great things about this clay, so I am quite excited to get playing with it. Thanks so much for your comments!
Thank you very much for reply, Cindy!
Mike Alsperger