Hints, Tips
& Questions
What are
your favourite tools or piece of kit? Do you have any info you've found
really useful, please send in your suggestions. Also any questions.
E-mail hints@NOSPAMbpcg.org.uk
removing NOSPAM from the address.
The answers to the questions
are the opinions of the various authors. Different people may have different
views based on their own personal experiences.
QUESTIONS
Question:
I am wondering if you can use a toaster type
oven for firing polymer clay. I am about to live in a caravan (touring
around Australia for about a year) and as our caravan does not have
a full size oven I was wondering about a toaster oven and if you can
recommend a brand.
Thanking you - Lyn
Answer: As
this is for Australia, to recommend a brand seems a bit pointless. I
confess that I grit my teeth at questions like this from overseas because
brands are so different in other countries. For the UK, I would say
a De Longhi oven from Lakeland is the best - costs £100. Never
fries the clay and is a fan oven. However, it is not what you would
call a "toaster oven" - it will do toast but the cheapie toaster
ovens have very exposed elements - are much cheaper (around £50
or less) and are very likely to singe the clay. - Sue Heaser
Question:
Can you tell me the
best way to store unused fimo clay? - Suzie
Answer:
Different people have different methods of storing their clay. I use
small plastic bags or cling film to wrap around and put all of it in
a large metal biscuit tin (I save all Christmas biscuit tins) Polymer
clay does have a tendency to react with some kinds of plastic so it's
worth experimenting with wrapping a tiny bit of clay in your intended
plastic and see how it is after a week or so. If it's stuck to it or
eaten away at the plastic then it's no good. I know some people use
wax paper but I've never tried that. One of the most important things
is NOT to store it somewhere warm/hot. Keep it somewhere cool. Garages
may be cool at this time of year, but may turn into ovens in the summer
or when the sun shines in. You don't want the clay to bake and partially
cure while sitting around. So not near radiators or anything. I have
mine in large boxes on the floor in the spare room away from the hot
water pipes that run under the floor boards. - Shelley
Question:
I am looking to buy a buffing wheel, and would like any advice you may
have on what to buy, and where. As you may guess, I am fairly new to
Polymer Clay, and only been a member for a month or so.
Hope you can help, as I have a frozen shoulder at the moment and any
help with polishing would be a bonus!
Many thanks Carol
Answer: What
you need to look for is actually a bench grinder, spindles and buffing
wheels to go on it. Most hardware shops and B&Q sell the bench grinders.
They range in price from about £14 upwards. I got a small one
from B&Q, but didn't look that it said it was for 'hobby use', which
basically meant when you looked carefully in the instructions it says
you shouldn't run it for more than about 10-15 minutes at any one time.
That's ok if that's all you're going to do, but I now do longer than
that. Just be aware of it when you buy one and think about how long
you are likely to use it for at a time. It's amazing how quickly time
flies when your happily buffing away!!
Now comes the conversion
bit. You need to take off the grinding wheels and put on a spindle -
it's actually fairly easy, even I could do it! I got one for the left
and one for the right side, but you could get away with only buying
one I think - you may have to ask to make sure it wouldn't be unbalanced
while in use. They are threaded differently so just make sure you get
either a left and right one, or just make sure you put it on the correct
side of the grinder for the spindle. The other thing you have to look
out for is the size of the spindle. It obviously has to be the right
size for your bench grinder. So you do need to investigate which spindle
size the bench grinder you want will hold and see if you can get one
that size. I think mine is 1/2". As for spindles and buffing wheels
- I got mine from exchange
findings - I found them exceedingly helpful when I rang them up
and was asking about how to fit spindles and what I needed. They have
showrooms in London, Birmingham and Dublin. The spindles are quite heavy
so if you can collect them you would save on the postage (but only if
it's cheaper than the fare to get to them!) The other place that I think
stocks both spindles and buffing wheels is HS
Walsh - they also have showrooms in Birmingham and London. The thing
you need for the actual buffing part is a polishing mop. I got a couple
of different ones to try out to see which I preferred. My preference
was for the soft reflex mop - I got a 5" x 1". I did try a
larger size but the larger it is, the faster it spins on the outside
edge and I found the larger one was too fast. I haven't tried a smaller
one to see if it's just as good! You do want a mop that isn't stitched
too much towards the edges.
The shops themselves
are usually fairly helpful, but they don't usually have any experience
with buffing polymer clay! Buffing with it takes a certain amount of
practice, but is fun! -- Shelley McLoughlin
HINTS & TIPS
I have just developed
a method of curing polymer clay by cooking in a sauce pot, which might
be of interest to you and your British polymer clay guild member.
http://www.garieinternational.com.sg/clay/shop/cooking_technique.htm
Best Regards,
Garie
My favourite piece
of kit is a 50p stainless steel hat pin bought at a car boot. It has
a solid pointy pin similar to a bodkin and a ball top just right for
indenting. I find it invaluable. - Gaynor Fryer
I also use hatpins
(just the pins, not with beads or anything), for putting my beads on
while they bake in the oven. I built a little suspension thing for them
out of polyclay with groves and can have several of them lined up in
a row full of beads. - Shelley McLoughlin
My other main tip
is to every now and again declutter - collect all bits and pieces of
clay and blitz to make a waste clay. For our 2006 programme we are having
a workshop making pebbles, stones and rock, so we will need loads of
those "dirty" colours. It's so nice to open a new pack of
clay without feeling guilty about all those accumulated bits! - Gaynor
Fryer
One of my most useful
tools is my oven thermometer. I got a toaster oven from a jumble sale
for £1 but wasn't sure how accurate it would be so I bought a
decent thermometer. I was surprised how inaccurate my ordinary oven
was as well! Money well spent - Shelley McLoughlin
If you have a fan
assisted oven, DON'T tent things with silver foil, it blows about in
the oven (well mine does) If you want to cover the item use a solid
lid or upturned container that wont blow away. - Shelley McLoughlin
The equivalent of
Future floor polish for the UK is a product called Johnsons Klear -
available in most supermarkets. It has more of an ammonia smell than
Future so you may need to ventilate when using it. Works great as a
sealer, I just use my finger and quickly spread over the item a light
coating. When dry I re-bake for a few mins at about 150. - Shelley McLoughlin
