New Materials

The thing is I've made some gifts for people and obviously I don't want to put pictures online before I give the presents away and spoil the surprise. So I'm just going to tell you about the materials I'm using for now and I'll put some pics up in the near future.

One thing I've used in the past and really enjoy playing with is Milliput. This is a two part epoxy putty that cures at room temperature and will even harden under water (not that I've ever tested it). It comes in grey, balck, terracota and superfine white. It is commercially used for fridge and pipe repair but also by artists and crafters as a sculpting medium. Once you knead equal amounts of the two parts together until the colours are blended without streaks, you are left with a very squidgy, soft putty. It fully hardens in about 6hrs (depending on thickness), and goes through various stages that you can take advantage of and work the material in different ways. You can use water to smooth the surface of the piece and remove fingerprints, and I also use it when tooling, even with silicone clay shapers. You do have to get use to the way it dries out but once you've figured it out it's pretty easy and nice to work. When Miiliput is fully hard you can treat it like plastic pretty much and file, drill, saw, and finish with wet/dry paper with plenty of water. I use three grades, 400, 600, 800. I'm looking into buying some 1200 for an even smoother finish and found out 3M make soft superfine abrasive cloths which sound pretty exciting too.

Recently I also bought some Super Sculpey. This is basically high-grade fimo for grown ups. Technically it is a polymer clay and bakes in a domestic oven so is perfect for home-based crafters. Doll and bead makers use this and other Sculpey clays. Super Sculpey is flesh pink and very soft after very little kneading, it will not harden until cured. Like Milliput, once hard you can work much like plastic. It recieves tools amazingly well with no spring back whatsoever. I found working it quite hard because it is just a bit too soft, it only just seems to hold it's own weight. Maybe an armature would help but I haven't given up on it because the ease of oven baking is great and the finish is nice after some wet/dry action.

You can then paint/decorate these hardened clays as you see fit.

Just to whet your appetite a little, I've been researching this really new material called Precious Metal Clay (PLC). It's a clay that when you kiln or blowtorch fire comes out as REAL fine silver. You can even go and get it hallmarked. A binder burns away during firing to leave only REAL silver particles. You can then burnish at pattina etc. Obviously jewellery is the biggest usage and it isn't cheap but I think the potential is pretty high. Might splash out on some and associated tools and see what happens, although I might make some rings too.

I shall let you know how it goes and get some pics of the clay stuff as soon as I've distributed them.