{"id":19534,"date":"2015-03-12T03:05:28","date_gmt":"2015-03-12T10:05:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/?p=19534"},"modified":"2015-03-06T19:46:02","modified_gmt":"2015-03-07T03:46:02","slug":"quenching-polymer-clay-wives-tale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/quenching-polymer-clay-wives-tale\/19534\/","title":{"rendered":"To Quench or Not To Quench &#8211; Is It A Wives Tale?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/?p=19534#video\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" style=\"margin: 0px; border: 0pt none;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/images\/blog\/2015-03\/12-90640-quenching-polymer-clay.jpg\" alt=\"Quenching Polymer Clay - Polymer Clay Tutor\" width=\"255\" height=\"146\" \/><\/a><strong><span style=\"font-size: large;\"><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Video #640:<\/span> I used Premo translucent polymer clay to test for strength and clarity&#8230; watch the video to see my results.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #808080; font-size: large;\"><strong>Topics Covered In This Video:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Quenching Polymer Clay right out of the oven&#8230; into ice water&#8230; is this something you should do&#8230; or not?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">I used to think (because people had told me), that plunging hot polymer clay into a bath of ice water would give it strength and improve clarity to with translucent clays.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Today&#8217;s test will show whether or not that is actually the case and whether it makes a difference at all.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">There has been some discussion around this topic that claims the quenching process is just a wife&#8217;s tale. Let&#8217;s find out.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">I have two sets of test samples&#8230; one was left to cool naturally, and the other is plunged into ice water while it was still hot.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Each sample set has two different chips of Premo White Translucent rolled to an 8 playing cards thickness, and the other to a 1 playing card thickness.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">All of the samples were baked at 275F for 1 hour.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">I tested both sets of baked samples (the quenched set and the non-quenched set), to see if there is any difference between the two&#8230; with regards to clarity and strength.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Visually, both look identical. Both of the thicker pieces have an identical yellowish hue with low translucency&#8230; and the thin samples, both have an identical whitish shade with my translucency test. I would say that these results are typical for translucent polymer clay, in general.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Next, I tested for clarity by placing thin samples against a text background, to see how well you could see through the\u00a0 translucent clay. The quenched clay and the non-quenched clay were identical. No improvement there&#8230; with quenching.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Hmm&#8230; starting to think this quenching thing really is a wives tale!<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Then I tested the thicker pieces for improved clarity&#8230; no difference there either.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">The samples were then tested for strength. All the samples were bent, folded and torn (well.. I tried to tear them), to see if quenching improved the strength&#8230; there was no discernable difference in strength between any of the samples tested.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">My conclusion&#8230; save your ice for Iced Tea or Iced Coffee, because it doesn&#8217;t make a difference&#8230; except I suppose if you need your clay cool in a hurry!<\/span><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><a name=\"video\"><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/JaJ496QQVfg?rel=0\" width=\"575\" height=\"323\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Related Video: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/?p=16577#video\">Comparing Translucent Polymer Clay Brands<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Related Article: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/?p=420\">Translucent Sculpey Clay, Fimo Clay, Premo, Cernit, Kato<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Related Video: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/?p=16666#video\">Pardo Professional Art Clay Translucent Review<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Related Video: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/?p=18768#video\">Strength Test Sculpey Souffle Polymer Clay<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><span style=\"color: #993300;\">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!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">My goal is to help you to learn quicker and easier ways to bring up the professionalism in your polymer clay art.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium; color: #808080;\">Oh and don&#8217;t forget to give these videos a<em> Thumbs Up<\/em> click at YouTube if you are enjoying them. The more <em>Likes<\/em> a video gets, the higher it rises in the searches. And that means even more people will be able to join in on this polymer clay journey of a lifetime.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Also, by subscribing to our YouTube Channel directly, you will receive notifications as soon as new videos are uploaded. To subscribe, click here&#8230; <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=JaJ496QQVfg\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"external external_icon\">Quenching Polymer Clay In Ice Water &#8211; Is It A Wives Tale?<\/a><span style=\"color: #808080;\"> &#8230; the Subscribe Button is right near the top of that YouTube page.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Looking forward to hearing from you!<\/span><\/p>\n<table style=\"width: 575px;\" border=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 200px;\"><\/td>\n<td align=\"right\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/images\/blog\/cindy-sig.jpg\" alt=\"Cindy Lietz Signature\" width=\"114\" height=\"99\" align=\"right\" border=\"0\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/images\/blog\/polymer-clay-tutor.jpg\" alt=\"Polymer Clay Tutor\" width=\"200\" height=\"26\" align=\"right\" border=\"0\" \/><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Video #640: I used Premo translucent polymer clay to test for strength and clarity&#8230; watch the video to see my results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2536],"tags":[2633,469],"class_list":["post-19534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pct-test-lab","tag-baking-polymer-clay","tag-translucent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19534\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}