Soften Polymer Clay with Fimo Quick Mix

FIMO Quick Mix can also be used when you need to make all the colors in a polymer clay cane the same consistency. Add tiny amounts of the Mix Quick only to the clay that is firmer than the others, until they are all the same.

Of course this can work the other way around too. You can stiffen up soft clay to match other firm clay by removing some plasticizers from the clay. See this video for more info: How to Firm Up Soft Clay with a Pasta Machine

Quick Mix is a plasticizer Katina! You can use it with all the clays without changing the color. My friend Bonnie Jones uses it to give strength to clay as well.

It is more expensive than the clay, so I’ve never really thought about using it alone!

Hi Mary Ellen that a great question! You could use TLS (Translucent Liquid Sculpey) but it would be an expensive way to go. You are better off using either Fimo mix Quick or a few drops of baby oil or mineral oil. If you use a food processor for mixing clay, make sure to not use it for food any more. You don’t want clay in your food, or food in your clay!

Hi Sarah – You can read the article above and comments on this page for some ideas to address your question. Also be sure to use the search function at the top of every page at this blog. Use keywords like “crumbly” and “conditioning” and “hard clay” and “food processor” to come up with a long list of articles that will help you.

Hi Ashlyn, great question!

Once a cane is partially cured, you can not really ‘re-hydrate’ it. But what you could do is bake the cane before cutting it. While it is still warm you can slice it into beads, then drill the holes into them.

A lot of people actually make cane slice beads this way. Let me know how it works out.

Cindy you mentioned a product called Quick Mix in one of your videos. I’ve been trying to find it and cannot find it anywhere. Where is it sold? Linda

@Linda Pardee: Hi! I’ve never been able to find Mix Quick on the shelves, either. I live in California, and the only clay softener I’ve found locally is Sculpey Dilutent. It works great for softening clay, although I’m told Mix Quick is nice because it doesn’t make the clay sticky. However, I haven’t had any problems with Sculpey Dilutent making the clay sticky, but I’m always careful not to use too much. (It’s a liquid, so I just do a drop at a time.) Hope that helps~

You can also use a tiny piece of the Sculpey mold maker. it’s also a clay conditioner and I’ve used it – works well. My translucent clay was a bit crumbly even though I had not yet opened the packet. It was a big block of clay I bought in NY.

I made the mistake of working outside on a hot day, and a bunch of my clay has become a little hard/crumbly. How long do you suppose it takes to partially cure the clay when its out in hot weather (i.e. 1/2 hour, 2 hours, etc.)? Also, not mentioned in this post is the ideal temp to store the clay. Is it a good idea to refrigerate in a sealed bag? Would that prevent clay from getting “old”? BTW I did chop up the crumbly bits and mixed in with soft clay…like the effect, so all is not lost. Thanks. ~Heather

@Phaedrakat: Thanks for your comment. After I wrote my post, the weather got even hotter and my clay became even more hard. I’ll see if my pasta roller will handle any of it. If I find any more specific info about curing temps I’ll post. Suffice to say, the temps in central California last week were in the upper 90’s-100’s so to any other polymer clay newbies BEWARE OF WORKING IN THE HEAT! Thank goodness I’m back home under a blanket of summer fog of the San Francisco Bay Area — and I will be storing in my refrigerator from now on! : )

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Just A Quick FYI… there is currently a technical bug happening with the “Reply” function here at the blog. When you use it, your comments are temporarily held in the moderation queue, pending approval. This is not supposed to happen, and it will be fixed soon. But for now, it would be helpful if everyone could refrain from clicking on that little “Reply” link. Instead, you can simply reference others by manually typing their name… like @Phaedrakat [or] @Heather Graef [or] @Cindy: [etc, etc.]. This way your comments will post in real time, without any delay. Thank you all. ~Doug
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@Stephanie L: I’m eager to hear the answer to your question, too. I’ve never been able to find Mix Quick on the shelves anywhere…I’ve had to use other things to soften my old clay.

There’s a similar question about using Mix Quick as a clay above, but no one has mentioned actually trying it. Since it IS a plasticizer, it seems like it would be quite (too?) soft to work with by itself. Also, I’m guessing that it would be super flexible after baking…but again, just a guess since I’ve no firsthand experience with it. You need proper answers from someone who’s actually touched the stuff, of course! ;D Hopefully, someone will leave a comment here soon with some good info for ya…

If it turns out the Mix Quick is of no use to you, perhaps you could trade someone for some regular clay (or maybe even sell it!) Seems like someone would be up for it…most clayers have some old crumbly, hard clay that needs softening up! Good luck to you~ :D

OK, I’ve tested Fimo Mix Quick on its own, and also with Fimo Classic, Premo and Kato. Only one set of tests per brand so the results are only indicative, but still useful, I think.

To answer the immediate question about whether you can use it as a clay on its own, the practical answer is that you could but you probably wouldn’t want to. Fimo Mix Quick is rather like a very soft and very sticky Fimo translucent. It’s quite soft straight out of the packet and softens further with minimal handling, which with its stickiness makes it quite awkward to manage. You would need to be extra careful about avoiding fingerprints, dust, etc., and it would probably have problems holding its shape (needing support during curing, and not being able to be used for anything sculptural). On its own it exhibits a lot of plaquing when cured, and when cured at a temperature that prevents discolouration it’s not particularly strong either. It’s reasonably flexible when cured, but not super-bendy.

It definitely couldn’t be used like the white clay Stephanie L initially mistook it for.

It does seem to be compatible with Premo and Kato as well as Fimo, somewhat to my surprise on the Kato front from what I’d heard elsewhere.

The gorey details follow for the curious.

Testing Process

I cured a sample of Fimo Mix Quick on its own.

For each clay tested, I made the following samples:
– A control sample of the clay on its own
– A mix of 7 parts clay to 1 part Mix Quick (i.e. 1/8 Mix Quick)
– A mix of 2 parts clay to 1 part Mix Quick (i.e. 1/3 Mix Quick, the usual proportion according to the Mix Quick instructions)
– A mix of 1 part clay to 1 part Mix Quick (i.e. 1/2 Mix Quick, the maximum proportion of Mix Quick according to its instructions)
– A mix of 1 part clay to 2 parts Mix Quick (i.e. 2/3 Mix Quick, more than the maximum according to the instructions, just to see what happened)

All samples were rolled at #3 on my pasta machine and cut with the same medium-size rectangular cutter.

General Observations

I didn’t do objective testing of the softening ability (e.g. by starting with standard size solids of the various mixes and seeing how much they deformed when a standard weight was placed on them for a standard time), but subjectively the Mix Quick seemed to soften all clays fairly equally in that it moved the consistency — and stickiness!!! — of the mixture from the clay’s own consistency to the consistency of the Mix Quick in line with the ratio of the two components. That is, there were no weird reactions that caused the combinations to either fail to soften, to stiffen up, or to soften more than the components individually were.

Clay mixtures that were 1/2 Mix Quick or more were soft to very soft, and very sticky, i.e. probably not practical consistencies.

In the uncured state, colours were noticeably diluted in mixes that were 1/2 Mix Quick or more. After curing things varied by clay brand and are covered in the relevant sections below.

Fimo Mix Quick Alone

Quite soft initially, softens further very quickly as you handle it. Very sticky!

An initial sample was cured on a thick ceramic tile, at 110C for 35 minutes (the recommendation on Mix Quick and Fimo Classic packetsm plus an extra 5 minutes time to allow for the tile heating up).

When cured, it was fairly translucent with no noticeable discolouration, although my cured sample showed quite a lot of plaquing. It was also fairly flexible when tested with small twisting movements, but not all that much more so than the pure Fimo Classic sample cured at the same time.

When I tried my bend test for gauging strength, however, it snapped at the first bend. Yikes!

So I repeated the test, but this time curing at 130C for 35 minutes. At this higher temperature there was some discolouration, i.e. the pure Mix Quick sample had browned and darkened a bit so that it looked rather like Premo Frost’s colour instead of being white. It was still fairly translucent (although slightly less so than the 110C sample), still had a lot of plaquing, and was fairly flexible when subject to small twisting motions.

When I tried by bend test on this second sample, it snapped/broke at the 15th bend. Not too bad.

Fimo Mix Quick with Fimo Classic

I have the US version of Fimo Classic, so it’s not particularly stiff to start with.

At the recommended 1/3 Mix Quick, the clay felt similar during handling to current Premo.

By the time I tried the over-maximum rate of 2/3 Mix Quick, the combination was soft and so sticky that it was difficult to handle, i.e. it got stuck to the bottom of the pasta machine instead of feeding out nicely.

In the uncured state, the clay’s colour appeared diluted at 1/2 Mix Quick and quite diluted at 2/3 Mix Quick. When cured this was not really noticeable, however.

An initial set of samples were cured on a thick ceramic tile, at 110C for 35 minutes (the recommendation on Fimo Classic packets plus an extra 5 minutes time to allow for the tile heating up).

The cured samples were flexible when subjected to small twisting movements. However, the sample with the most Mix Quick was not much more flexible than the sample with no Mix Quick.

When I tried by bend test for gauging strength, all samples snapped at the first bend. Yikes again! (But not caused by Mix Quick because the control sample of pure Fimo Classic broke at the first bend too.)

From other tests I figured the curing temperature was too low, so made a second set and cured this lot at 130C for 35 minutes. The bend test results for this second set of samples were as follows:

Pure Fimo Classic – Almost fully cracked at 4th bend, snapped at 6th.
1/8 Mix Quick – Almost fully cracked at 3rd bend, snapped at 4th.
1/3 Mix Quick – Cracked noticeably at 4th bend, almost fully cracked at 6th, snapped at 12th.
1/2 Mix Quick – Cracked noticeably at 5th bend, almost fully cracked at 12th bend, broken at 16th (not so much a “snap” now).
2/3 Mix Quick – Cracked noticeably at 5th bend, almost fully cracked at 12th bend, broken at 18th (not so much a “snap” now).

So the higher temperature definitely helped the strength, and the slight increase in flexibility given by the Mix Quick delayed the point at which the samples snapped or broke.

Fimo Mix Quick with Premo

I used the firmest Premo I had for this round of testing; it wasn’t as firm as the Fimo Classic I used in the previous tests, although it was certainly firmer than the current product.

The 1/2 Mix Quick mixture was sticky and soft, and the 2/3 Mix Quick mixture was very sticky and soft.

In the uncured state, the clay’s colour appeared quite diluted in the 1/2 Mix Quick and 2/3 Mix Quick mixtures.

Samples were cured on a thick ceramic tile, at 130C for 60 minutes (i.e. how I’d usually cure Premo pieces of that size).

After curing, all the samples with Mix Quick showed some discolouration, being slightly but noticeably darker and “dirtier”. Interestingly, the sample with the least Mix Quick showed the most apparent discolouration, but I think this was because the increasing dilution of the clay’s colour counteracted the darkening, progressing through the other samples. The sample with the most Mix Quick seemed very much more translucent than the control sample, and had quite noticeable plaquing; some plaquing was also visible in the 1/2 Mix Quick sample.

There wasn’t any significant difference in flexibility when the samples were subjected to small twisting motions (Premo is pretty flexible when cured anyway).

The bend test results on these samples were as follows:

Pure Premo – Snapped at first bend (I guess I should go “Yikes!” again here, for consistency ;D).
1/8 Mix Quick – Almost fully cracked at 3rd bend, snapped at 4th.
1/3 Mix Quick – Almost fully cracked at 3rd bend, snapped at 4th.
1/2 Mix Quick – Almost fully cracked at 3rd bend, almost fully disconnected at 4th, snapped at 5th.
2/3 Mix Quick – Cracked noticeably at 3rd bend, almost fully cracked at 5rd bend, snapped at 6th.

So these samples are stronger than the Fimo Classic cured at its recommended time and temperature, but not quite as strong as the Fimo Classic samples cured at an elevated temperature. (To be fair I should probably have tested Premo samples cured at its recommended time and temperature instead of the increased curing time I used here… maybe some other time when I’m not as busy!) Again, the slightly increased flexibility imparted by the Mix Quick seemed to delay the point at which the samples snapped or broke, but not to the same degree as with the Fimo Classic.

Fimo Mix Quick with Kato

The 1/2 Mix Quick mixture was sticky and soft, and the 2/3 Mix Quick mixture was very sticky and soft.

In the uncured state, the clay’s colour appeared quite diluted at 1/2 Mix Quick and 2/3 Mix Quick.

Samples were cured on a thick ceramic tile, at 150C for 40 minutes (i.e. how I’d usually cure Kato pieces of that size).

There was no discolouration after curing in most samples. The 1/2 Mix Quick sample was very slightly discoloured, i.e. only noticeable if compared closely to the others. However the sample with 2/3 Mix Quick was slightly but noticeably browner, the original colour definitely looked a bit diluted, and some plaquing was also visible in addition to a slightly more translucent appearance (not as marked as with Premo, however).

After curing, the samples with Mix Quick were increasingly more flexible as the proportion of Mix Quick increased, but none were super flexible.

The bend test results on these samples were as follows:

Pure Kato – Survived more than 600 bends… I got tired of bending it at that point! The sample was partially worn through as instead of a quick snap there’s damage that builds up slowly, but even after 600 bends it still took a fair amount of force and a slight twisting/tearing motion to then pull the pieces apart.
1/8 Mix Quick – Survived more than 600 bends. At 600 bends there was a bit more damage than there was to the pure Kato sample at the same point, but still pretty good.
1/3 Mix Quick – Survived more than 600 bends. At 600 bends there was a bit more visible damange than there was to the pure Kato sample at the same point. However, when I tried to break it the rest of the way by pulling the two pieces apart it was probably even more difficult than with the pure Kato, and definitely required a twisting/tearing motion.
1/2 Mix Quick – Survived more than 600 bends. As for 1/3 Mix Quick, i.e. slightly more of a twisting/tearing motion than for 1/3 Mix Quick required to break the sample the rest of the way.
2/3 Mix Quick – Survived more than 600 bends. As for 1/2 Mix Quick, i.e. slightly more of a twisting/tearing motion than for 1/2 Mix Quick required to break the sample the rest of the way.

So, much to my surprise, Fimo Mix Quick was pretty good with Kato, although I now want to do expansion/contraction tests which might explain contradictory reports I’ve heard. Kato is so much stronger than the other clays during the bend test that it’s slightly ridiculous, and I wish I’d picked a smaller number than 600 bends to stop at because I was really sick of bending bits of clay by the time I’d finished with all of the samples! LOL Mix Quick’s slightly increased flexibility changed the nature of the force required to complete breaking each sample after 600 bends, and very slightly increased it. However the increased flexibility is not necessarily good in a finished item, e.g. if it is hollow or open, and truly excellent strength was observed even in the most rigid sample.

@Sue F: WOW!!! This is exactly the reason why we love you so much Sue! Not only are you willing to test something out immediately, but you are willing to document and share your detailed findings with all of us. As always, I am extremely impressed! Thank you so much!

I had some hard clay so I tried this technique I found online for steaming the clay…ended up with a big pile of totally “dead” crumbled clay. Since then I just rub a bit of petroleum jelly ( just a little!) and work best I can. Roll into a coil, cut into chunks and run through pasta machine on thickest setting. The jelly helps it go right through. Work again into a coil and repeat a few more times. Then I wipe the ball off to eliminate excess greasiness, work it again by rolling and twisting. I let it settle awhile before using the clay. Like the results so far.

With Fimo (only), glycerin / glycerine is also a very effective clay softener that has little to no effect on the strength of the softened clay.

It will NOT work with other brands, however!

Information on how I tested this is posted elsewhere on this site if you’re interested in all the gorey details. ;)

that is amazing Nanette:)

Dear Cindy,
First I want to say thank you for your helpful videos. I have some questions that i hope you can help me with. I have been having issues with my clay. I use primo and fimo, I bough a lot on sale at one time and it was super hard and crumbly. I thought the clay softener would help and it did. I conditioned them all (about 20 ) and it worked fine….. Now im going to use it again (I put it away for a month or so) and it doesn’t want to work for me at all. I run it through my machine and add more softener but it still does not come out rite it is so crumbly and on top of that when i bake it it comes out so soft i can bend it. I know a big first question.. sorry . Can you work acrylic paint,oil,water color,chalks,glitter, etc. into your clay before you bake? also, every project that i have done (other than the cold porcelain i made at home) every thing that i do comes out so bad i want to just give up. Please help me
Thank you for your time :)

Dear Cindy,
I have found the above FAQ immensely useful for my future FIMO projects. I am, however at this time, trying to soften my SUGRU. Sugru has a softener of its own but it is sold only to people WHO buy fencing equipment and I dont fence. So would you happen to know? Does Fimo Mix Quick or Sculpey Clay Softener soften SUGRU too?
Thank you,
Bilge