Have You Ever Heard Of A Polymer Cane Extruder?
Video #603: A cane slicing tool that makes perfectly round or perfectly square slices every time… at any thickness you desire.
More...
IN THIS POST: — polymer cane extruder — slicing canes — millefiori — polymer canes — polymer clay canes — round canes — square canes — karen troise — ktwearableart — kt wearable art — etsy — ebay — inventor — polymer clay tools — tools — slicer — (Topics marked with an asterisk* are discussed in the Comments Section below).
Topics Covered In This Video:
- A Polymer Clay Tool invented by Karen Troise for slicing polymer clay canes.
- Karen sells them at KTWearableArt on Etsy and eBay.
- She designed the tool to make it easier to slice polymer clay canes at any thickness that you require…. very thin or super thick.
- This extruder tool is made up of an acrylic tube and a corresponding acrylic plunger rod.
- The tool comes in 5 sizes…. 3 round and 2 square.
- The round sizes are: Small (3/8th inch) for $9.99; Medium (1/2 inch) for $13.99; Large (3/4 inch) for $14.99.
- The square sizes are: Small (5/8 inch) for $13.99; Large (7/8 inch) $14.99.
- To use, first spritz some water inside the tube.
- Then reduce your cane by hand so that it easily slides into the tube.
- Use the rod to tamp down the cane inside the tube, in order to compress and expand the cane inside the tube, with no air pockets.
- Use the rod to push out the cane at the desired thickness.
- Slice cane with a sharp, stiff blade.
- This tool makes perfectly shaped and evenly sliced cane slices.
- Keeps square canes perfectly square, so they fit beautifully together when making patterned cane sheets.
- It also lets you slice canes right down to the very end, with very little waste, something that is often difficult to do by hand.
- I give some neat little tips on using extruder disks and acrylic pieces to compress the canes more evenly.
- A plastic photo storage box holds all five tools and the promo card inside.
- Make sure to remove your cane pieces from the tool after you have cut what ever slices you need, so that the clay does not get stuck inside.
- ADDENDUM: The Polymer Cane Extruder has a new, updated version. (see link below.)
00:00:03 –> 00:00:08 Hi guys, its Cindy Lietz, your Polymer Clay Tutor, and today’s PCT Product Demo, we’re
00:00:08 –> 00:00:12 talking about the Polymer Cane Extruder.
00:00:12 –> 00:00:19 Now this is a neat little tool that was invented by Karen Choice, and her…where she sells
00:00:19 –> 00:00:27 them is at KT Wearable Art on Etsy, she also sells them on eBay, if you wanna look for
00:00:27 –> 00:00:29 her there.
00:00:29 –> 00:00:36 But this is a neat little tool that she has designed because it can be tricky to slice
00:00:36 –> 00:00:41 Polymer Clay Canes perfect.
00:00:41 –> 00:00:42 Hi guys, its Cindy Lietz, your Polymer Clay Tutor, and today’s PCT Product Demo, we’re
00:00:42 –> 00:00:43 talking about the Polymer Cane Extruder. Now this is a neat little tool that was invented
00:00:43 –> 00:00:44 by Karen Choice, and her…where she sells them is at KT Wearable Art on Etsy, she also
00:00:44 –> 00:00:45 sells them on eBay, if you wanna look for her there. But this is a neat little tool
00:00:45 –> 00:00:46 that she has designed because it can be tricky to slice Polymer Clay Canes perfect. So she
00:00:46 –> 00:00:47 carries them in a bunch of different sizes and basically what they are is…it’s got
00:00:47 –> 00:00:55 a tube, an acrylic tube and an acrylic rod, and they’re in different sizes, the small…she
00:00:55 –> 00:01:02 has 3 round ones and they’re for doing the round canes, the small one is 3/8 of an inch,
00:01:02 –> 00:01:10 the medium one is ½ an inch, and the large round one is ¾ of an inch. Then she also
00:01:10 –> 00:01:19 has some for slicing square canes in 2 sizes, the small one is 5/8 and the large one is
00:01:19 –> 00:01:29 7/8. Now when you’ve got a small little round cane like this, it can be tricky to slice
00:01:29 –> 00:01:35 it perfectly. So this little tool will do it quite easily for you, now all you need
00:01:35 –> 00:01:42 to do is put a little bit of water… spray some down the center of the tube, and then
00:01:42 –> 00:01:47 you need to reduce your cane so that it is going to fit inside of your tube…and this
00:01:47 –> 00:01:57 needs to be a little bit smaller, it needs to fit down inside. Then you use the rod and
00:01:57 –> 00:02:05 you press it down so that the cane is pressed right against the surface, and what you’re
00:02:05 –> 00:02:14 doing here is you’re compressing the cane, you’re making it fill that tube completely,
00:02:14 –> 00:02:19 and this makes it perfectly shaped, that’s one of the cool things about this particular
00:02:19 –> 00:02:25 tool. Now you can see this rod is a little smaller than the tube, so I have to kind of
00:02:25 –> 00:02:32 go tamp around in a circle ‘cause there’s a bit of play there, and just to press it
00:02:32 –> 00:02:38 down evenly, and you can check the edges to see if you’ve got good compression, this could
00:02:38 –> 00:02:42 use a little bit more ‘cause I can see a few little gaps, so we’ll just keep pressing
00:02:42 –> 00:02:51 around the edges here and completely compress it. Then what you do is you can just use the
00:02:51 –> 00:02:57 plunger then to slide the cane out just a tiny bit to whatever thickness you want, so
00:02:57 –> 00:03:02 if you want a really thin slice, you only just push it out a little bit, and then you
00:03:02 –> 00:03:08 use a sharp blade and you make a slice with it, now the first one sometimes isn’t perfect,
00:03:08 –> 00:03:16 but we’ll see here, I’ll just take a thin slice, and slide right down. And I find it
00:03:16 –> 00:03:22 quite a bit easier actually to do it up in the air like this ‘cause then I can see
00:03:22 –> 00:03:27 the whole surface, so I just slide it down to the thickness…if I wanted a little bit
00:03:27 –> 00:03:35 thicker slice, I could do it there, and then I could just slide it along and cut it perfectly.
00:03:35 –> 00:03:42 Now…so you can control it by the thickness, and like I said, because it completely fills
00:03:42 –> 00:03:48 the chamber you have a perfectly round shape, you don’t get any distortion at all, and it
00:03:48 –> 00:03:53 works beautifully for all the different sizes. And the neat thing… like with a square cane
00:03:53 –> 00:03:59 for example, it can get a little bit…so it’s not perfectly square, and when you’ve
00:03:59 –> 00:04:04 got it inside this chamber here, it keeps it perfectly square so that when you go to
00:04:04 –> 00:04:09 fit all your pieces together and you’re making say a fabric sheet or something like that,
00:04:09 –> 00:04:15 your pieces fit really well together and so that’s an advantage to it. Now there’s one
00:04:15 –> 00:04:23 little thing that I think is cool too, is that because of the design of this, you can
00:04:23 –> 00:04:30 get your cane… you can slice it right down even when it’s really, really small, now this,
00:04:30 –> 00:04:35 if I’m trying to hold on to this and I’m trying to cut slices and even, I’m only going to
00:04:35 –> 00:04:41 be able to go so far before I start… before it becomes extremely difficult to cut, and
00:04:41 –> 00:04:49 with these tubes here, you can get right down to the end. And I wanted to show you this
00:04:49 –> 00:04:55 neat little idea, one of the things, like I said before, there’s a bit of play in here,
00:04:55 –> 00:05:01 and so what can happen is when you’re pressing it down, you can end up kind of squashing
00:05:01 –> 00:05:07 more in the center than around the outside edges, and Doug and I were thinking about
00:05:07 –> 00:05:13 this a little bit and when I came upstairs, I noticed on my table, I had an extruder disk,
00:05:13 –> 00:05:19 and this is this little steel disk that goes inside the extruder, and I thought well, if
00:05:19 –> 00:05:27 I dropped that down inside, that would give a more even pressure to the… to the rod,
00:05:27 –> 00:05:33 so when I press on that, I can press the whole thing down perfectly. Now that only works
00:05:33 –> 00:05:41 for this particular…the large disk, the ¾ inch one, but another thing that came to
00:05:41 –> 00:05:48 mind is, I do scrapbooking and stuff as well, and I have…sitting around are some Tim Holtz…Fragments
00:05:48 –> 00:05:55 they’re called, and they are these little acrylic disks, and because its acrylic, I
00:05:55 –> 00:06:03 thought maybe I could try one of those, and I found one that fit perfectly inside the
00:06:03 –> 00:06:13 disk, right inside, which was just a coincidence and that one works beautifully, then I thought
00:06:13 –> 00:06:19 well what if I try to make some for the others. So I took some of the different shapes and
00:06:19 –> 00:06:26 I cut them and filed them and ended up making a bunch of little shapes…where did I put
00:06:26 –> 00:06:32 them, one for each of the different size disks, they took a little bit of fiddling around,
00:06:32 –> 00:06:36 but I ended up getting them and so now I can use that to press down and I don’t have to
00:06:36 –> 00:06:43 worry about the little bit of slop there. And then finally as just a little way to store
00:06:43 –> 00:06:48 them, I found these, they’re called photo boxes, they have them in a bunch of different
00:06:48 –> 00:06:53 colors, they have them at Michaels, they’re for storing your photographs in, but they
00:06:53 –> 00:07:01 fit this set of cane extruders beautifully, so I put her…Karen’s little card that she
00:07:01 –> 00:07:10 sends with them, in here and all my little tools. Now make sure that when you use them,
00:07:10 –> 00:07:14 that you press them completely out, don’t leave them stored in there because the clay
00:07:14 –> 00:07:20 could get stuck in there, and then you can just wipe off the tools with a baby wipe,
00:07:20 –> 00:07:27 it also…you can use a little plunger to clean the inside of the tube out with a baby
00:07:27 –> 00:07:32 wipe, because it makes it quite easy to get into the inside like that, and then you can
00:07:32 –> 00:07:37 store them away however you like. So I hope you enjoyed that, it’s a really neat little
00:07:37 –> 00:07:43 tool, it makes perfectly even slices whatever thickness you want, it keeps those shapes
00:07:43 –> 00:07:52 perfect and it can slice your canes right down to almost the very, very end which means
00:07:52 –> 00:07:58 you get more use out of your canes. So I hope you like this video, and if you did, do let
00:07:58 –> 00:08:04 us know. And if you have any comments or suggestions for other videos or products you’d like
00:08:04 –> 00:08:10 me to test, leave those in the comments section below as well. And don’t forget we have a
00:08:10 –> 00:08:17 great resource over at PolymerClayTutor.com, where are you can use the search box and find
00:08:17 –> 00:08:22 all the answers to all of your Polymer Clay questions. We’ll see you next time and bye
00:08:22 –> 00:08:23 for now.
Our goal is to translate these videos into as many languages as possible. If you are interested in helping with this initiative, then please do contact us and we will figure out a way to make it worth your while :)
Resource Links:
- Related Video: Polymer Cane Slicing Techniques
- Related Article: How to Slice Polymer Clay Canes
- Related Video: Simple Slicer Tool for Cutting Polymer Cane Slices
- Related Article: Slicing Fimo Nail Art Canes
- Related Video: Slicing Polymer Clay Canes With A Dull Knife Sucks
- Etsy: Polymer Clay Cane Extruder Updated Version **
Resources marked with a double ** asterisk are affiliate links. If you click on them and decide to buy something, we may receive some compensation. This does not affect the price you pay in any way. What it does do, however, is helps us to continue providing free videos for you, here at the PcT website. Using our links to purchase your tools and supplies, is always greatly appreciated.
Sponsored Ads & Special Promotions
Shareable Images
To share this full blog post anywhere on the web that allows links in comments, here's a shortened url to copy and paste...
>> https://mypct.ca/v603 <<
Want to chat about today’s post? That’s what the comment section below is for. Scroll Down… We’d love to hear from you!
Or... if you would like to request a topic for a future post, here is the link to do that… PcT Suggestion Box
I went to etsy to check out this product. I went to order and it said they aren’t shipping to the US. What????
Hi Laurie, I am guessing that she ships to the US since she is in the US. Maybe where she says that she is selling to select countries, maybe she means in addition to the US? You should contact her though, if you Mohave any questions.
I’ve got my cane extruders ordered and am anxiously awaiting delivery. I also thought of washers as a pusher but thought couldn’t they be made out of polymer clay (well sanded)? Has anyone tried that yet? I work for in a manufacturing plant that punches it’s own sheet metal. There are big bins of punched out shapes, squares, circles, ovals, etc. I thought it was a crafter’s dream when I first saw it. Maybe I’ll ask Larry if I can go rooting through his bin sometime soon. :-)
Oh, a boneyard! How exciting Dawn. When I was cutting glass my brother would go through the glass in the boneyard where he worked. Treasures!
Ooh, the boneyard. Love it. I was looking through Larry’s bin this afternoon and there were all kinds of shapes and sizes of little metal pieces. I think I will find some treasures in there.
Didn’t see that Peg already came up with the washer idea…but if you know an electrician, there are those round punch-outs on the metal housings for outlets…:o)
Useful tools, and video, thanks…Having the od of the rod and id of the tube so different would drive me crazy. It occurred to me that it might be possible to find washers that fit the different round tubes, but for the square ones, I guess the cutting and filing would be the only option.
In case anyone else wants to make pusher helpers, forget the cardstock. It won’t take long to disintegrate. A little of the clay still smooshed toward the back but not much. If you make your own out of whatever I suggest that you don’t fret if you don’t make it a perfect fit. I think it might need just a tiny micro space kind of like juice cans need air spout and a pouring spout. The slices came out perfect and now I am excited to use them. I’m making tiny bird house for a friend and I think I’ll put the slices on one of them. Enjoy y
our day.
What a fantastic woman you are Peg for coming up with all these ideas for alternative ways of making it work! Thank you so much for coming back here and sharing your results. It means a lot to the entire community!
Thanks, Cindy. I’m not much of an original thinker but I’m a pretty good mimic and pretty good at buiding on. It was fun trying to figure out what would work.
Basically, I just traced around the acrylic rod and made sure I cut on the outside edge of the scrap clay so it was bigger than the rod. The easiest would be a couple of layers of clay. It’ll work for awhile and if/when it breaks, make another.
Okay, blabbermouth me again. I have not had time to play with my new extruder set, but I did manage to make the pusher helpers (don’t know what else to call them). For the largest round one, I used a washer. I used bake and bond to put on a thin layer of clay to cover up the hole in the washer. No problem. The washer I had for themid size round cane was a little too small, so I added a bit of clay to fill the hole and to make the washer a little bigger. I also added a piece of cardstock for strength. For the smallest round, and the square extruders, I layered card stock and clay so there are 3 layers of cardstick and 2 layers of clay, alternating. After baking, the only one I needed to adjust was the smallest round one. It was a little too big so I used my tiny file to make it fit. This seemed easier than using plastic since I would have to use my tin snips and I’m sure I would have to do alot of filing. Well, off to work I go. I’d rather stay home and play but the mortgage company requires money from me every month to stay here. LOL
Yippee! I got my cane extruders today and I found that a washer does fit the largest round extruder, but I don’t have anything figured out for the rest. I am going to try cutting out some shapes from a cd or cd case. Will let you know if it works.
Hello!
I llieeve in Brazil and will start work with poymer clay.
I saw some videos and I want to know where I can buy some tools that you show. Do you sell them?
If yes, I will send my list of products, ok?
Thank you so much and sorry my english… kkkk
Patricia.
Hi Patricia, I am sorry but we do not sell the tools that we demo at this time. We do try and add links to where they can be purchased if possible. It would be best if you were to do a Google search to see if the products are available in your area or if there are places that will ship to you at a reasonable cost. Good luck!
I ran up to JoAnns to pick up some clay (1/2 price on the blocks + 20% off total w/oupon) and I found some little wooden disks but only 1 size and I wasn’t sure it was the right size. I will go to the hardware store when my round set gets here and see about the washers or maybe they have some acrylic ones that will work.
Leave it to you Cindy to come up with the answer to filling the gap. Perhaps Karen will notice and be doing something about that herself… :0)
A great video with lots of idea! (your bracelet and necklace are great btw! – but where are the earrings? lol)
Yes Aims, perhaps Karen will. I am sure she could figure out an easier way to do it too. I do know she has been looking for a supplier for getting rods with a closer fit, but hasn’t been able to source one yet.
As far as no earrings…. I didn’t make any… ran out of time… plus wouldn’t that have looked a little too matchy-matchy? I had a hard enough time putting two matching items on at the same time as it was. (I drove my mom crazy when I was a kid. She had sewn my up a whole bunch of matching summer outfits and I refused to wear the proper sets together. Mixed and Matched every one of them!) :)
Thanks for highlighting these tools. I went right to her website and ordered the round ones. Will buy the square ones next week. I was thinking maybe washers might come in sizes to fit the round ones or even some flat buttons might work. I’ll have to think about what would work with the square ones. I may have to find a handy friend who could cut them for me. What kind of tools did you use to cut the acrylic? I may be able to do it myself.
Fantastic ideas for pushers Peg! I bet even a few squares of a cereal box would work temporarily for the square ones. I have never cut Plexiglas before and ended up breaking a jewelry jaw blade and melting one of my JoolTool Disks, grinding them to the right shape. I am sure there is an easier way to cut it. Maybe Karen the inventor knows? Now that I have them cut, it doesn’t matter, but I wouldn’t recommend my way of doing it to others! ;)
What a brilliant idea. Shipping costs to Canada are prohibitive as well but thankfully I am close to the border.
Yeah, don’t you sometimes wish that darn border wasn’t so expensive to cross, Lawrence? It feels like there is always something wonderful sitting on the other side of the fence, but you have to get a little scratched up by the barbwire to go get it… metaphorically speaking of course! LOL
Back again,
looked on Ebay and although the cost of Karen’s tools are reasonable I have decided that the cost of the shipping is just too much as I would want the whole set and I am not prepared to pay the high cost of shipping.
Loved the red and white “Scandi” type jewelery and guess you will use Karen’s tools in making these pieces. Can’t wait………cheers…xx
Elaine, so good to see you back! Hope you have a wonderful holiday season.
You might want to try giving these folks a call in the United Kingdom, they look like they cover the full range of acrylic and the like. They might have open cylinders, open squares and rods that they could cut to size for you at a minimum cost?
Thanks Jocelyn,
You are always looking to help other members. You are a Doll. Will see if they can help. Haven’t been very active as my sister is in hospital. She was put into a Coma after a serious operation and most of my time has been visiting her for the last month. Hopefully she is over the worst but might need another operation next week. But it’s so good to come here to take my mind off things. You have a happy holiday season too….cheers…..xx
Oh Elaine , I am so sorry to hear about your sister. Hopefully she will come out of the coma with greater health than when she went in. My heart goes out to you as you stand by her side.
Love this aid for precise slicing but once again, Karen does not ship to UK from her Etsy site so all the Brits lose out on many items that are created in the US.
So I expect I will have to wait for my cousin to come over and twist her arm to buy these for me in the US……boo hoo……..xx
Cindy,
I’ve been following your blog for a while now, I’ve never heard of this tool, i guess you learn something new everyday!
What an inventive useful set of tools! Karen, you should be proud of this invention. Amazing how the square cane slices match perfectly when placed into a larger sheet!
Cindy, the addition of the presser aides assist the whole process, and hopefully, Karen can add them, or something similar, to her line. Using a sheet of graph paper underneath would help in measuring the slice sizes if you do not have the same glass mat you have in the video. If I needed a lot of slices, I think I’d try to anchor the acrylic tubes on either side with strips of polymer clay to the work surface, too. Also, since water is the lubricant, bet you could place these tubes in the fridge or freezer to help keep the clay cool as you slice it.
I love the square cane pattern, as well. Sure hope that’s in a future tute. I also keep seeing two little glass dome like things setting on top of the pink Ultradome resin light? Hmmm. Wonder what they are? LOL!
Here’s the link to Karen’s Etsy site, I love her work!
Thanks Jocelyn for the great tips and helping everyone out! As you now know, those cane designs were indeed a part of your future…. your immediate future! LOL
Those items you see on the Pink UV Lamp are actually gifts from members. One is a glass paperweight with a painted artwork and polymer clay embellishments from Claudia Rubinstein of Australia. And the other is an Abalone Shell from Marissa Marcolin, also from Australia.
I should show them up close to everyone sometime. They are both such beautiful and generous gifts from such lovely people from so very far away. I feel so lucky to have such amazing people (you included) as part of our clay family! :)
Hi Cindy, I saw the value of these immediately and stopped right over to her Etsy store and bought a set of each. (my Christmas Gift) Thank you so much for seeking out these innovated tools and bringing them to us!
How timely! I saw a few DIY slicing techniques on Pinterest that I was just about to try but these are so much better!!!! Thank youi!