Simple Slicer Tool for Cutting Polymer Cane Slices

I love your videos and hope someday to subscribe to your site, since I’m too sick to work I have my husband to take care of things, so these free videos you put out are a? huge help to people like me who have to be supported by someone else.

I am new to polymer clay and love the way you do your videos, they are the best I’ve seen on the net.

Hi, I bought one when I was a beginner, because I could never cut even thicknesses. I loved it & it works well. Now that I have been working with polymer clay for a year, I rarely use it as I have learnt how to control the tissue blade. I am sure people will find this a great tool, especially beginners.

I’m putting this on my wish list. (Had I not spent so much at the Philadelphia BeadFest last week, just might have purchased one today!) One comment I might add is that I would probably use translucent clay as the scrap needed to keep the shape. It might prevent any problems with the scrap clay color getting onto your good cane! That could just be me being a perfectionist though!

I showed this item to my hubby and he said it reminds him of the tool they used in bio to cut small tissue sliced.. It’s used in thee ducal field to cut thin slices for biopsy so that a small tissue sample is needed …. Boy how many different ways one device can be used

Hi Natalie! To get a good look at all the medical tissue blades, google image it. They vary in length and can be quite stiff. You can use the same medical plastic device to cut clay, but, they are horrifically expensive in the supply catalogs. I bulk bought a box of blades from a medical supply house, think they are stainless steel.

Some like the throw away small one ended blades that go into window scrapers. Or use those that work in old shavers because they are super flexible though short.

Other folks are used to using blades from the paint scraping industry, especially long and large ones are used in devices that scrape away floor finishings, like in refinishing gymnasium floors.

The kitchen has also supplied their share, I know someone who swears by a Japanese cleaver they sharpen everyday, and others who use cheese and egg slicers. Of course, the newer veggie peelers work a treat here too. I still want to try the mandolin slicer someday, lol.

The new poly clay made blades are far longer, more flexible, and provide varying blades, both ripple/wave and handles. Some seem to have a coating on the surface that lets them slip through the clay.

Art and medical scalpels are are whole ‘nother area to explore. The best for cutting out tricky designs are the ones that swivel as your hand moves around the object, so your cut is always in the same direction.

This is definitely something for my wishlist! I’m about to start learning how to cane and I can see how this tool would be very handy in making uniform slices! Plus, like you said, when you get down to just a small amount – it’s a great way to slice to make sure you get the most out of your cane or slab!

Love all your videos!!!

Oh Binky, You have made my day and made me giggle.

Living in the U.K. I haven’t even looked at the Etsy site to find out the cost of shipping overseas, gotta be horrific. As my niece lives in New York I will ask her to think about setting up a courier service using ONLY gorgeous sexy hunks ( Sure you would be interested!)

Although my pockets are deep they have large holes in them so no money stays in them for long. Lee Ann looks like she’s made a great product and pitched it at a price that she thinks will sell well.

Like you, I will have to wait to see if prices will drop as seems I get most new gadgets that come on the market and spend the money from my sales on more gadgets and more clay. I would love to go on a Polymer Clay cruise or go to a retreat for a week, but who knows perhaps one day I will win the Lotto. We can but dream.

I have health problems too and have recently lost the use of the first two fingers on my dominant hand (typing this with my ring finger) so haven’t been claying for a time………cheers xx………………..

Shipping is not as bad as you might think. I have ordered from the uk and felt the shipping was worth it. some things just can not be found here. Like the marksit. I found some in Austrialia and bought several. give it a look see.

darlene

Cindy, you’re so cute! I love your bubbly, enthusiastic personality. I am definitely gonna check out the slicer too, thanks for sharing this review.

Hi Binky, believe it or not i tried to use some regular peelers before I was sent the ones from the Simple Slicer and could not find one that peeled a nice even slice. They were either too dull or peeled too thick or too thin. I found that the Pro Slicer really cut the easiest. The blade seemed to be at just the right angle and were really sharp. I found that I could even get a decent cut without the Slicer box, but it was trickier to get my hands out of the way and to get a full slice. Both the white handles one and the green handled one worked too, so if your budget is very tight, you may just want to start with one of the cheaper Slicer and no box. As an alternative you could try and find one in a kitchen shop that was cheaper, but it may take you a while to find one that works as well, and end up costing you more in the long run. That’s what Lee Ann found when she started the whole thing in the first place.

I bought the larger model a short time ago after Cindy mentioned the Simple Slicer in the comments on a recent article, with the intention of using it with large mokume gane slabs and long veneers.

I haven’t had much of a chance to play with it yet, but it definitely works well for those and I’m happy with the purchase.

For regular-size canes and small canes, however, I’ve found that I much prefer to cut slices by hand. I have more cutting options and get equally-good if not better results that way, without the need to use scrap clay bumpers or cut my cane short to fit in the device. I’ll probably use the Simple Slicer for the very ends though!

(I’m going to build my own cane slicing gadget to suit the cane sizes I normally use and the way I like to work, but haven’t made it a priority and am still looking out for some of the components I’ll need for it.)

In relation to the peelers, I have all three offered with the Simple Slicer — I bought the Professional Peeler and the Plastic Handle Peeler, and Cindy Peterson very kindly included a Short Handle Peeler as well — and I too found the Professional Peeler to be by far the best.

I’d actually used a variety of other standard and wide peelers with “field expedient” height guides (i.e. whatever seemed suitable that was lying around) a couple of times in the past, after seeing peelers on Dan Cormier’s web site. In case it helps, one of those was a wide peeler that seems identical to the Simple Slicer’s Short Handle Peeler, and it only cost me a couple of dollars on eBay. (The best of those other peelers was a duplicate of the stainless steel peeler I’ve used in the kitchen for years. It worked as well as the Professional Peeler, but it’s not as wide. It was fairly expensive though, so not a budget option!)

I still like tissue blades best. They are much sharper than polymer clay blades (which I don’t think are sharp at all even when new) and even the Professional Peeler and my other good peeler, and they give much cleaner slices.

Thanks, Linda. It’s good to know about other options too, particularly if they’re inexpensive.

What I have in mind, however, is quite specific and a bit “mad scientist”, sort-of a cross betweeen this and this and this, with a few other features that I want thrown in. Not the kind of thing you can buy directly, anywhere, unfortunately!

Hi Natalie! Isnt it nice to have a hubby who is handy with tools? Not that Im not, But he had the right blade to cut with and the nice thick acrylic too. Only advice I can offer is to make sure the acrylic is thick enough to allow for screw holes without being too thin. I had him make mine to hold index cards but you could easily make it any size you wanted as long as you could find a slicer to fit it. Good luck with your slicer box creation. I have yet to try mine seriously but I cant wait to get it really working as soon as I get a slicer that works. About the wax? I just recently had a similar situation when my sweet hubby came home from the hardware store with some wallpaper blades. He said he got them for me to use with my clay. I didnt have the heart to tell him they were way to thick and I will probably never use them for what he intended. But I just told him thank you and took them to my craft room. Maybe I will find another really handy use for them. Gotta love em for trying. :)

Yes this looks like a wonderful tool

:)
Eunice

It does look very efficient, but if you want twenty slices from one cane, you’re going to have to stop to take cards out after every slice, no? Very time consuming.

Hi Rosina. Another suggestion to speed up slicing specific slices, is to have card stock of varying widths cut to the size of the slice, then to the size of the slicer chamber. Might speed things along.

yup I want one. I think she is sold out???? but I wil l keep trying. Thanks Cindy. love your posts.

Hi All!
Just putting in my two cents re the slicer. This is the second cane slicer I bought. The first was the JASI cane slicer by Judith Skinner, but this one is simpler and better. I bought my Simple Slicr last year but it sat around collecting dust until I came up with an idea to use an old large cane of mine to cover butterfly pendants. Well, I LOVE IT. The price kind of makes you pause but since I couldn’t make one of my own, that was that. I consider it a good investment, working in polymer clay is not cheap as someone else said.

Loved how simple it was and effective. I don’t need it for small canes, just the big ones. Cindy, Thanks for bringing this lovely invention to our attention! You’re the best.

Off to make some daisy pendants. ( I had to use diluent on the old cane slices to make them soft & workable, so they are sitting now, while I go off on a new tangent :). )

link is dead. cannot find the simple Slicer.