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cleaning your polymer clay pasta machine

1. Prevent the Handle from Falling Out

To prevent the handle from falling out of your pasta machine all time, you just need get a small round, super strong magnet (comes in packs) in any craft or hardware store. They usually come with adhesive on the other side which you can stick to the end of the handle.

2. Crumbly and Torn Clay Edges

Usually, crumbly and torn clay edges appear after running through the machine. To prevent this, you must first run the clay into the machine a couple of times because crumbly and torn edges suggest that the clay is too dry. You then can a few drops of the Sculpy Softener or mineral oil. Do these a few drops at a time until the clay and oil are mixed well. Add more drops if you feel the clay is still a bit dry.

3. Keeping Your White Clay White

If you have a lot of polymer clay to work on or if you craft mostly involves polymer clay and you have the space and money for a second polymer clay pasta machine, it’s best to use one just for white and the other for the rest of the colors. This makes sure that you white remains white and not of some mixed up colors.

4. Baby Wipes Helps

To clean the surface and rollers of the pasta machine, you can use baby wipes but first squeeze out the solution from it and moist it with rubbing alcohol since water is the worst enemy of your pasta machine.

5. Removing Stuck Clay

If you have too moist clay and it got stuck to the rollers, you can use a little bit of baby powder in your hands and rolling the clay in that for a while.

6. Removing Clay Residue

If you are working from dark colored clay and switching to a lighter color/white and you don’t have another machine for this. You can use a piece of felt cloth or paper towel and press it firmly above the rollers to collect the clay residue.

Crafting is one of the favorite hobbies my sister loves to do. Among the top three she loves to work on are clays, polymer clays to be exact. She contours them, mixes them to create her works of art. She admitted that although she loved this for some time now, she always find it time consuming during the mixing and conditioning, as well as building the armature part. It’s quite interesting though that some people actually finds this process as relaxing and therapeutic exercise but my sister confessed that although this might be helpful, she be better off spending her time on the actual sculpting and the “doing-the-art” part.

polymer clay pasta machine

polymer clay pasta machine

I took this piece of issue to help me find her a gift that could help her doing her clay art pieces easier and faster so I went buy to a local craft shop. I was telling the saleslady of the shop about my sister’s situation yet failed to get a favorable response. Luckily though, another customer in the shop overheard our conversation and she politely informed me that she knows what just I need.

She said that she herself finds the the conditioning of clay process is daunting and mundane as well. Hence, she used a polymer clay pasta machine to help her around with this one.  Ever since she used the pasta machine, she claimed that her work had never been much easier. After hearing her story, she even direct where I could buy such machine. I thanked her and gone to buying the polymer clay pasta machine as my sister’s birthday gift.

Polymer clay or better known as “Play-Dough” clay are colorful, sculptable materials created from polymer polyvinyl chloride (PVC). It usually contains no clay minerals and is only called “clay” because its texture and malleability resemble those of mineral clay. It is a popular material used by artists, hobbyists and children. Few tools are essential for use with polymer clay and are commonly found around the house. For the sake of this article though, we focus at the use of the polymer clay pasta machine.

A polymer clay pasta machine like any pasta machine is primarily used for pasta making. However, many have seen the usefulness of the pasta machine in the field of arts especially when it comes to clay modeling which is why it too is widely used by many. It is used mainly for creating sheets of clay with uniform thickness, mixing different colors, conditioning clay and creating patterned clay sheets. Techniques like marbling and slab working can easily be done using this machine. A stainless steel pasta machine is usually the ideal machine to use as it is very durable and because it’s made of stainless steel, PVC clay will not easily stick onto the surface. Currently, there are some brands of stainless steel pasta machines that are specifically intended for this purpose, like the Amaco Pasta Machine. It features seven thickness settings, a removable crank and a clamp to secure it onto the work surface. Some even come with feeder trays to free the one hand from having to feed the machine and both hands could then be used to turn the crank. Clean-up is very simple, wiping the stainless steel surface with a dry cloth or brush is enough to remove any excess oil that the clay might have left. To help the roller turn smoothly, apply a small amount of oil to the gears and joints. Water should not be used when cleaning any kind of steel pasta machine as it will damage the gears and joints.

Polymer clay pasta machine like any pasta machine, it is a delicate equipment. It may last a lifetime provided utmost care and attention is given to it.