Really great to see what you can do with the medium!  I’m really impressed.

Kyle=

I was just cleaning-up the final product, when I learned how brittle this particular kind of polymer clay is.

:banghead:

Hi Dale, sometimes using wire frame for thin pieces and/or crumpled up tinfoil filler for thick pieces lends more structural stability to polymer clay projects.

Jeffrey Boyd Garrison;94499 wrote:

Hi Dale, sometimes using wire frame for thin pieces and/or crumpled up tinfoil filler for thick pieces lends more structural stability to polymer clay projects.

Jeffrey,

Are you talking about that wire mesh that I’ve seen in the art stores, or do you mean making a custom frame from bending wire?

I’m not familiar with polymer clay, but your experience with brittleness would suggest that while the medium is good for crafting the design, it’s not ideal for the finished (wearable) product.

Would it be possible/practical to use the polymer original to cast a mold in some more durable product, and then use that mold to cast the final (wearable) product in, maybe, some sort of (semi)metallic material of the sort used to patch cracks in metal castings?  (SInce the mold should be reusable, you can reproduce the design for other family members, or to replace damaged ones (damaged castings, not family members—more’s the pity…).

Caveat—this is just a brain-drizzle, I don’t know just how (or if) it would turn out.  My only personal experience was lost-wax, which takes actual metal-casting equipment of the sort used by some jewelers and dental labs.  I was happy with the results (but then I didn’t set the bar all that high!) but without the equipment for lost-wax casting, it’s not doable.  I was lucky enough to have access to an Army recreational facility with that equipment (decades back)—

Dale Challener Roe;94506 wrote:

Jeffrey,

Are you talking about that wire mesh that I’ve seen in the art stores, or do you mean making a custom frame from bending wire?

I’m referring to custom frame made from bending wire… it basically serves the same purpose that rebar serves for concrete.

Michael F. McCartney;94509 wrote:

cast a mold in some more durable product

Michael, people do make molds using these types of sculptures… fantasy game miniature sculpters often start with either polymer clay or "green stuff." They then end up using pewter castings from the molds they create. I think some of these sculpters even use FIMO and Sculpey.

It turns out though, that finished/baked polymer clay is actually very very resilient… it dries very hard and unlike organic clay, because it’s synthetic, it doesn’t flake or crumble at all. Thin joins will still sometimes be easily broken but can be glued (and stronger for it) in that event.

The biggest problem with polymer clay is before you bake it, it’s very fragile.

Jeff—thanks for the correction—sounds like polymer clay is more practical than I would have guessed.

For those who are interested, I spent some time last week experimenting with different clays to see what produced the best results.  I’ve been out of commission the last few days, and just a couple of hours ago got to inspect my results.

I purchased several clays from the local store, trying to keep to choices that were inexpensive and readily available.

For each one I took a piece about as big as a peach pit and rolled it into a flat disc roughly 1/8" thick.

Sculpey III: $1.80-$2.80 per 2oz block - many different colors.

When baked feels like a mix of rubber and plastic.  Somewhat brittle in thinner areas.  Holds nice detail, but can be easy to break.  Better for 3D objects.

Sculpey Premo: $2.00-$3.00 per 2oz block - many different colors.

Less stiff and more rubbery than Sculpey III, but you can still break it by bending it back and forth.

Fimo: $1.80-$2.80 per 2oz block - many different colors.

Harder than either of the above, but more brittle.  Also easy to overbake, at which point it’s even more brittle.

Super Sculpey: $9-$15 per 1lb block - semi-translucent beige (think skin tone of a doll).

The strongest of the bunch.  When baked has the weight of a light ceramic, but the feel of hard plastic.  Stiff and strong.

The big minus with this one is that anything you make you’ll have to paint.

However, the box for the Super Sculpey suggested mixing it with eaither of the other Sculpey Products.  So I tried that.

Super Sculpey + Fimo:  Not a good combo.  Hard to mix and the result was still brittle.

Super Sculpey + Premo: Strong and still somewhat pliable.  Equal parts of colored Premo and the Super resulted in a pretty strong color.

Super Sculpey + III:  Best combo for what I’m looking for.  Equal parts kept the color of the III clay, but was still very strong.  Strong enough that the final product can be worked with Dremel tools.

Thanks for the research, Dale!

Echo what Kenneth said, the sortie into polymer space has yielded valuable wisdom; thanks Dale! :D

Dale Challener Roe;94487 wrote:

I was just cleaning-up the final product, when I learned how brittle this particular kind of polymer clay is.

:banghead:

Doh!  I had been meaning to follow-up with you, Dale.  I really appreciate the picture and the effort you put in, even if the final product was lost.  But it was very cool and a great idea!

Thank you!

Kyle