WIP Baking Sculpey?

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Glen

Glen

A Fixture
Joined
Oct 21, 2005
Messages
507
Location
Texas
Howdy.

I want to try and sculpt a flat using Sculpey III or Premo (I normally use Aves Apoxie Sculpt). I've baked bits and pieces before, but never a rolled out, flat sheet about 1mm or so thick. What do I put it on that I can remove after baking? Since I normally sculpt flats on glass or waxed paper, is there a heat resistant barrier coating I can use between the clay and the surface?

Cheers,

Glen
 
I've used aluminum foil for armatures with Premo before, so it would probably work as a backing for a flat. No chemical reaction with the foil. I'm thinking baking parchment for cookies might work too.
 
For sculpting and baking flat items I sculpt it on a piece of ceramic tile and then bake it. No release agent needed.
 
I use hotplate instead of microwave oven to bake sculpey and it works best for me. (and hotplate is cheaper than oven too)

You even don't need aluminum foil. Use cardboard instead of aluminum foil on hotplate, put your work on it, and just bake it. with 140-160C it takes 20-30min. No burns, no scorches. I think this is very easy to bake small and flat items.

This is very popular way to bake sculpey-style clay in Japan.
 
Well, in my haste, I neglected to mention a few pertinent details... The idea is to roll the clay out flat onto a surface that will not distort when I pick it up to put it into the oven and, when finished, I can peel off without further damage. This is especially important when I've sculpted various details into the soft putty. Additionally, I use the glass or wax paper under the Aves because there is a drawing of the flat under it. I cut the Aves away as far as the drawing to get my basic outline. Then I transfer the drawing to the hardened putty.

I've used aluminum foil under Sculpey once and spent time picking pieces off the parts when the clay bonded to the foil. I hadn't thought of baking parchment. I'm assuming I lay the clay onto the waxy side, which I can forsee giving me some difficulties in laying out the base drawing.

Felix, the tile sounds good. I'll probably have to find something at least 7x7 inches for a 100mm flat. I'm assuming we're talking about regular white bathroom or kitchen tile and it'll just pop right off the tile? I will have to transfer the drawing to the tile; or I could just roll out the clay to the general shape, bake it, then transfer the drawing, then cut away the excess.

Kaz, are you putting the soft clay directly onto the cardboard. Doesn't it stick?

Cheers,

Glen
 
Glen said:
Kaz, are you putting the soft clay directly onto the cardboard. Doesn't it stick?
Click to expand...

No, it doesn't stick at all. I use cardboard on hotplate like this.
bake-on-hotplate.jpg
 
Hi Glen,
You are right. Just some regular kitchen or bathroom tiles. I use 6 x 8 and 4 x 4 inches gloss surface tile. I just baked it let it cool down. If it sticks, I use an xacto blade to go around the edge lightly. The piece will just slide out. It works every time. The tile surface maintains an even temperature when baking the piece. I usually does my drawing on paper. I then lay a piece of plexi-glass on top of the drawing and sculpey on top of the pexi-glass. Cut away the access according to your drawing underneath and then transfer it to the tile for baking.

Hope this will help!
Felix
 
I use an old aluminum foil pie plate. It's Dutchy of me, I know, but I never throw them out, and I have a stack of them. I found the trick wasn't so much the surface that I used as much as paying careful attention to the temperature. I used my kitchen oven, which has a temperamental thermostat. I use an oven thermometer, too, but the temp got a little hot, which turned the putty black as it cured. It wasn't burned as such, just discolored. The next time, I set the temperature a little lower and left the piece in the oven a little longer, which worked better.

Prost!
Brad
 
Ok, I'm obviously going to have to experiment with the above techniques. The first time I tried to roll out sculpey to a flat piece was to make a rough paved temple floor for a 70mm conquistador. It was about 2x2 inches. I flattened the clay to about 1mm and tooled in a texture and joints between the stones. When I tried to lift it off my glass work surface, it stuck and stretched out and tore. A second attempt, using light cooking oil to get it off the glass, got it off the glass, but it still flopped around and distorted. I finally resorted to sculpting it directly onto the wood base, then baking it. It worked great, but it baked onto the wood and I couldn't get it off without cracking it. This wasn't a problem since it was where it was supposed to be. This is what's driving my concerns, how to get an unbaked sculpted piece from my transparent work surface, to a baking platform without damage/distortion, and then how to remove the baked piece from a baking platform without the piece being baked onto the platform... I'll try the tile. Off to Home Depot!

Brad, did you grease the pie plate at all? I used heavy gauge foil and had to pick bits and pieces out of the sculpt. OTOH, this is a good reason to get pie...

Slainte

Glen
 
Vaseline is used for smoothing and can be used as a resist with Sculpey...just lay down a layer before you sculpt on your work surface and more to smooth down features and folds, etc, if you want, on the sculpted surface.
It disappears when you bake it.
You might be baking it at way to high a temperature than is really neccessary.
 
Thanks Ken. I've used Vaseline as a release agent for Aves, but it's a bit dicey at times. Not enough and it doesn't work well; too much and it contaminates the putty to the point where it doesn't cure properly and starts to crumble. I'll give it a shot with the Sculpey.

Cheers,

Glen
 
Glen said:
Thanks Ken. I've used Vaseline as a release agent for Aves, but it's a bit dicey at times. Not enough and it doesn't work well; too much and it contaminates the putty to the point where it doesn't cure properly and starts to crumble. I'll give it a shot with the Sculpey.

Cheers,

Glen
Click to expand...

Be careful Glen, vaseline / petroleum jelly / chapstick are all adhesives in sculpey-land!

For example, to add more sculpey to a baked sculpey part, it must be first brushed with vaseline or similiar for the baked and non-baked to stick ;)

Totally different uses from epoxy putties!
 
Most sculpey users use Vaseline as an adherent or glue for adding more scupley to already cured sculpey. The Shifftlet Brothers preach this method.... I use it myself. I would not suggest using it as a release agent. I too work with tiles from Home Depot, slips right off after baking, sometimes you need to apply a little presure, but not much....
 
I've never used vaseline as a bonding agent...only as a smoother. I used to use lighter fluid, but I was getting a white reidue with the breakdown of the Sculpey; learn something new every day I guess.

BTW, while on the subject,There is a new product which works fine (so far for me) called "Bake and bond" by Sculpey itself.
Got it in AC Moore (and Michaels)...it's good for unbaked to baked...baked to baked, and either unbaked or baked to another product ot medium....like an addition to a hardened basewok of epoxy for instance, or Celluclay.
 
I wonder how parchment paper for baking would work in this application? I never thought about it before, but I may try some, to see how well/poorly it might work.

Prost!
Brad
 
BTW, I make alot of push molds out of sculpey and use sculpey in the push molds. I use wd40 as the release or cornstarch when I can find the can of wd40....
 
OK... I'm confused. Vaseline (petroleum jelly) is used as an adhesive and/or a bonding agent depending upon when and where you use it?

Phil, I did see the 'Bake and Bond' in Michaels. It was in a small eyedropper type bottle for about 7-8 bucks. Seems convenient.

Tormag, I still have the issue of seeing through the work surface when using a tile. Would a clear/glass tile would work (assuming it was thin)? What about regular glass - like what you get with a photo frame?

Cheers,

Glen
 

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