Food Processor Conditioning Hard Polymer Clay – Tip #3
Video #478: Coffee grinders work too, for softening up any brand of dried out & crumbly polymer clay.
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IN THIS POST: — conditioning — hard polymer clay — softening polymer clay — soft polymer clay — leaching plasticizers — tools — food processor — machines — softener — oil –baby oil — clay softener — mineral oil — sculpey clay softener — (Topics marked with an asterisk* are discussed in the Comments Section below).
Topics Covered In This Video:
- High speed machine chopping technique.
The spinning blades will warm and soften your polymer clay very quickly. - Once you use a food processor or a coffee grinder for conditioning polymer clay, DO NOT put them back in your kitchen. They are no longer food safe.
- Adding soft translucent clay, or drops of baby oil, will help if your clay is extra dry.
- Gather chopped clay and knead in hands or pasta machine until soft
00:00:03 –> 00:00:07 Hi guys, its Cindy Lietz, your Polymer Clay Tutor, and today’s Studio Tip, we’re talking
00:00:07 –> 00:00:17 about Conditioning Hard Polymer Clay – Tip #3 Using a Food Processor, or a Coffee Grinder.So,
00:00:17 –> 00:00:24 we’ve had a few other videos talking about hard Polymer clay that is too crumbly to actually
00:00:24 –> 00:00:27 condition by hand or with your pasta machine, and here…
00:00:27 –> 00:00:32 I’ve got some more here, it’s a little bit of really old Fimo soft, I normally work
00:00:32 –> 00:00:38 with Premo, and so all my Premo is fresher than this old stuff, so I’m using the Fimo
00:00:38 –> 00:00:45 to demo, but it’s a good one to start with, and as you can see, it’s extremely crumbly.
00:00:45 –> 00:00:49 Now, one thing you can do…I’ve showed you where you could add oil, you can do things,
00:00:49 –> 00:00:56 and those can be a little bit messy, another thing you can use is an old food processor…don’t
00:00:56 –> 00:01:01 use your new one, or one that you’re gonna be using food with, or you can also use a
00:01:01 –> 00:01:06 coffee grinder, they act a little bit differently but I’ll just show them to you here.Now,
00:01:06 –> 00:01:12 like I said, you don’t wanna be using this again for food ‘cause you don’t wanna
00:01:12 –> 00:01:17 have plastic getting into your food, and you don’t want food getting into your Polymer
00:01:17 –> 00:01:18 clay.
00:01:18 –> 00:01:25 So I’m just gonna take my bits of crumbled up clay here, and throw it in…starting to
00:01:25 –> 00:01:34 run a little low here, a little bit more, and you just put it in the food processor
00:01:34 –> 00:01:39 here… there’s smaller one’s out there too, if you wanna buy it specifically for
00:01:39 –> 00:01:44 working with polymer clay, you don’t have to use your old bigger machine.
00:01:44 –> 00:01:53 And you can just put it in there, put the lid on and pulse it, now, what this does is
00:01:53 –> 00:02:09 it breaks it up, it warms it up and will sometimes…just a sec, it will…depending on where it’s
00:02:09 –> 00:02:14 at, if it’s a little bit softer, it’ll glob up together and ball up a bit, this is
00:02:14 –> 00:02:23 very, very dry and powdery, so this is… won’t clump up quite as much, but it will
00:02:23 –> 00:02:27 gather into a ball a lot better than it was doing before.
00:02:27 –> 00:02:34 Now, one thing that you do to coax it along is you can add oil like I did before, a couple
00:02:34 –> 00:02:40 drops at a time, but I like to show you lots and lots of options, so another option you
00:02:40 –> 00:02:48 can do is you can take a little bit of softer Translucent clay and pop that in, it will
00:02:48 –> 00:02:52 alter the color a little…well the color stays the same, but it’ll become a little
00:02:52 –> 00:03:00 bit more translucent, but it will help to soften up that clay and get it balling up
00:03:00 –> 00:03:13 and working together a lot easier, so I’ll just mix that together.
00:03:13 –> 00:03:22 And when you go to ball this up, and you can see…you can see here all these crumbles,
00:03:22 –> 00:03:27 I could have gone a little bit further ‘cause some of the Translucent is a little on the
00:03:27 –> 00:03:34 large side, but it’ll start balling together a lot easier than it did before, and you’ll
00:03:34 –> 00:03:38 start…you’ll be able to work with it a lot better and quicker.
00:03:38 –> 00:03:44 Now, you can do the same sorta thing on a much smaller scale with a coffee grinder,
00:03:44 –> 00:03:50 the thing with a coffee grinder is though, is it tends to just really turn it into a
00:03:50 –> 00:03:57 powder, I’ll just pop a little bit more in here and show you that…now, of course
00:03:57 –> 00:04:08 you don’t wanna be grinding coffee after you’ve done this, it basically turns it
00:04:08 –> 00:04:16 right into a fine dust, this can be gathered together and made back into clay, it takes
00:04:16 –> 00:04:17 a little bit more work.
00:04:17 –> 00:04:21 You can also throw in some Translucent in with that, it’ll clump together a little
00:04:21 –> 00:04:36 better, you can see it’s a little bit…a little bit better there, and it will work
00:04:36 –> 00:04:43 up into a clay quite quickly, so that will work.
00:04:43 –> 00:04:50 And you can… it’s a great way to use either one of these machines for mixing batches of
00:04:50 –> 00:04:55 colors, if you’ve got a really large amount of clay that you need to mix, this is a much
00:04:55 –> 00:05:01 quicker way to get mixing your colors together than if you had to do it all by hand.
00:05:01 –> 00:05:07 So, I hope that was helpful for you, if it was, do let us know if you liked this video.
00:05:07 –> 00:05:12 And also, if you have any other requests for videos on topics or techniques or tips that
00:05:12 –> 00:05:17 you would like to learn from me in a future video, leave those in the comment section
00:05:17 –> 00:05:18 below.
00:05:18 –> 00:05:20 We’ll see you next time and bye for now.
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Resource Links:
- Related Video: Conditioning Hard Clay Tip #1 – Using a Hammer
- Related Video: Conditioning Hard Clay Tip #2 – Using Oil
- Amazon: Glass Bowl Food Processor **
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HI I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW HOW TO REMOVE CLAY FROM PLASTIC THANKS LET ME KNOW
Hi Donna, you can usually clean polymer clay off of plastic with rubbing alcohol or a baby wipe, unless the clay has eaten into the plastic because it was the type that is incompatible with polymer clay. If it ate into the plastic, there isn’t much you can do but avoid getting clay on it in the future.
I think I will try this in my mini processor after all, It seemed to not be as messy as I thought.
Hello! Love your videos! I am learning so much but I have what may be a really dumb question. I have an Mack pasta machine and I love it but it’s driving me crazy! How on earth do you get the handle to stay in? Every time I l turn it the handle falls out as soon as I let go. Hopefully you know an answer for me. Thank you!
Thank you Kristi for your sweet comments! As far as the handle goes, watch this video, it solves that very problem:
Does Your Pasta Machine Handle Keeping Falling Out?
In the future, type your question into the search box at the top of the page and there may just be an answer for you in our blog already. Most questions have been asked at one point or another. If you don’t find an answer to your question though, do feel free to ask. You may have a new question that we haven’t heard yet and we would love to help you figure it out! :)
My hands are sooooooooo dry. Boowhoo poor me! I’m a newbie! If i have moistuerizer on my hands will it affect the clay? If i used olive oil or mineral oil on my hands would that be any better solution?
Thanks for having such a comprehensive website i’m on it alot these days learning so much from you, i really appreciate all the time you have devoted to this art form!
Hi Barb B.
Welcome and yes, you can use olive oil, baby oil etc. to keep your hands smooth. Just rub it in well before and after you have used polymer clay, after washing your hands. Don’t put too much on as it will affect your clay and turn it sticky but if you dust your work surface, roller etc. with corn starch (cornflour) it helps.
Again not too much and you can get a fluffy brush to dust down your creation either before or after baking. If you use the search box at the top of the page you will find heaps of great information. Just type in your subject and up pops helpful tips…cheers xx…..
Cindy I don’t have a food processor but after watching you use yours, it just went
on my wish list! Got any ideas of what brand would be good to get for clay?
Thanks Sherry for the cleaning tip.
Used Black and Decker Food Processors and coffee grinders are my first choice, I have two with two extra processor tops, and they last forever with strong motors. You can get extra processor containers at Goodwill or the like so you can separate by colors like Maria noted above. Same with their line of coffee grinders.
Hi Cindy,
I have used my old food processor for softening up clay. The thing that is maddening though is cleaning it up afterwards. I was able to snag two bowls: I keep one for the colors (red is probably the most “lethal” in my opinion of coloring other clays) and one for white/translucent. That way I can keep my translucent as pristine as possible. Because even if you think you have cleaned it up, those little specks of color can pop out and color your lighter clays.
Maria
Cindy: “My goal is to help you to learn quicker and easier ways to bring up the professionalism in your polymer clay art.”
Done, and very very well.
Ahhhhhh, the sound of softening clay in the processor, music to my ears, LOL!
left a comment for you at You Tube – but wanted to say Thank You here also – my old food processer’s plastic bowl finally gave up the will to live and went bye bye
Note to anybody that wants their processor plastic bowl to have a longer life span:
Always clean it with rubbing alcohol before storing- cuz that raw polymer clay will eat it- live and learn;)
Anyway my point was – I’m no longer having to look around (read: spend money) on another food processor Because of our Smart tutors demo on a coffee grinder, of which I (somehow) have two, YAY !!
Excellent point Sherry! I had planned to say that you can clean your machines with baby wipes or rubbing alcohol, but had forgotten to mention it in the video. Thanks for the reminder!