How can I soften sculpey??

[Mortimer]

Can somenone tell me the best way to soften sculpey? Should I do it before oven it or later?
Is it posible to soften hardened scuppey once it´s cooked?

Thank you friends.

[riteguytu]

Originally Posted by Mortimer

Can somenone tell me the best way to soften sculpey? Should I do it before oven it or later?

Sculpey can be softened with mineral spirits before cooking - Turpenoid, 90% Lighter fluid, to a less extent-vaseline.

Originally Posted by Mortimer

Is it posible to soften hardened scuppey once it´s cooked?

No

[Mortimer]

Thank you for your answer, I´ll try to do it this way.

[sepuljerry]

[QUOTE=riteguytu;3703142]Sculpey can be softened with mineral spirits before cooking - Turpenoid, 90% Lighter fluid, to a less extent-vaseline.

How about petroleum jelly? Would that be safe to use? I just bought a 1 lb brick of Super Sculpey Firm and it's freakin hard.

[Tombo]

There are a lot of methods to soften clay that has advanced. There are three things that I do. All three methods are successful but have varying degrees of p.i.t.a. factor.

1. Simply mix in plain super sculpey in whatever ratio gives you a workable mix. With a pasta machine this is probably the most simple solution. The drawbacks are that in significant amounts it will change the color of the super sculpey firm, and you have to find the super sculpey that has not also advanced or your degree of softening will be reduced.

2. Mix in Sculpey Clay Softener (formerly called Sculpey Diluent) to the overly stiff Super Sculpey firm. This method is messy at first but requires very little of the additional product to quite quickly soften the clay. The drawbacks are that it is messy and you should not use a pasta machine until it is relatively will mixed in.

3. Mix in Sculpey Moldmaker (and clay conditioner) with the overly firm clay. This is my prefered method for several reasons. It also requires very little product, you can use the pasta machine, and the mess factor is minimal. You start with just a smidge of the moldmaker to start and add until you reach the level of softening that you desire. This method also increases the elasticity of the clay making the finished product less likely to break.

All of these methods share one very important characteristic... That is that they infuse the overly stiff clay with the same plasticiser with which it was manufactured. The chemists spend a lot of time designing the formulas that result in the clays that we use and while mineral oil or vaseline or some such thing may work, there may also be unexpected results sometimes years down the road. I feel far more comfortable using the materials that are actually created to work together, rather than taking a chance on having a catastrophic failure at some point due to using improper products.

Just my opinion, feel free to add anything you want, I just don't like to take that chance.

Tommie
http://tommiej.wordpress.com/the-ult...culpting-tool/

[mwf6171]

Put it in your armpit!