Baking Super Sculpey to achieve proper hardness

[William Paquet]

To start, you should ignore the directions as written on the package. You can get the clay to harden by baking for fifteen minutes per ¼ inch thickness, but it won’t be properly hardened.

Going under the assumption that what you will be baking is a full finished figure, anywhere from 6 to 15 inches tall, requires far more time in the oven than most people would assume.

I always bake the finished work for several hours. If the sculpt has some very thick areas that haven't been beefed up with foil or previously baked blocks of clay even longer.

This works for me-

225 degrees for three hours, turn the oven down to the minimum- 170 degrees on most ovens, bake for another three hours, shut the oven off and leave the sculpt to cool overnight.

You want a higher temp for initial baking to properly cure the clay, and you want the reduced temp over an extended period to allow the core of the mass to gradually cool which reduces the chance of cracking.

A poorly baked sculpt will be weak and prone to breaking and chipping. Sometimes when I bake in stages areas of the sculpt will get very dark. The darker the clay, the harder it is.

Here's a sample-



Notice the head color. It may not look like it if you've never baked a long time, but that's the same sculpey as the rest of the figure. When it get's to that color the material is very strong and will take quite a bit of abuse before damage can occur.

With the new Grey Sculpey firm, the changes in the color of the clay are more subtle, but it will still change. The same baking techniques still apply.

Also, the clay when hot or warm is always "rubbery". In fact heat is a great asset when cutting a sculpt into separate components. When I need to remove arms, like on this piece, I use a heat gun to warm the areas. The sculpey softens, and I use an exacto to make the cuts. If you've assembled a vinyl garage kit, the technique is similar to heating vinyl before cutting the parts. In the future I will try and find the time to post a thread just on separating and keying a figure.

[William Paquet]

Originally Posted by Veritas

Great info

So is it ok to bake parts separately, then attach them and bake the entire thing again?

For example bake a finished head, attach it modify it as necessary and then bake the entire figure ?

Thanks for the help

Yes. Heads, hands, whatever. If you want to make them separate from the figure go right ahead. Bake them, attach them to the figure, sculpt some more, bake again. No problem.

[William Paquet]

You need to assemble the parts as you would a kit. Use a peg of some kind, and either super glue or epoxy it. Then you can modify the work, re bake, etc.

[William Paquet]

Originally Posted by Bengalslair

William...excellent reference...I have a question though. Does this also apply to sculpy mixtures/Grey sculpy?

-Husky

Any polymer clay will work the same way.

[Kdawg59]

I've copied this here from the "sculptor's pit stop" so you can all reference this GREAT source of info from the man himself.

[hellspawn77]

... you had me at "...to achieve proper hardness"

Claudio

[William Paquet]

Originally Posted by hellspawn77

... you had me at "...to achieve proper hardness"

Claudio

what would your mother say?

[hellspawn77]

Originally Posted by William Paquet

what would your mother say?

BTW- that is an awesome Cap in the pic!

Claudio

[shiflettbrothers]

if I get it too baked sometimes it won't even achieve proper hardness, and I'm only 35.


j

[Vader]

This is like a cooking course. Apart from Jarod's perverted comment.