{"id":20311,"date":"2016-04-11T05:00:29","date_gmt":"2016-04-11T12:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/?p=20311"},"modified":"2016-04-07T17:34:33","modified_gmt":"2016-04-08T00:34:33","slug":"review-beesputty-plastic-sculpting-clay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/review-beesputty-plastic-sculpting-clay\/20311\/","title":{"rendered":"Review BeeSPutty Plastic Sculpting Clay"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"BeesPutty<\/a>Video #729:<\/span> A unique alternative to polymer clay, with much superior properties for fine-art sculpted projects and creations.<\/span><\/strong> <\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

BeeSPutty can be baked in stages and new clay can be added and rebaked as many times as you wish.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is also 2 opaque colors (White and Bone), 1 Metallic (Gold), and\u00a0 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!<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n