Polymer Clay Finish

[BRobbins629]

My neice and I are collaborating on a few pens and she has put some nice polymer clay around some tubes. What types of finishes have been used? Can I use CA? Was also thinking of turning some down below the bushings and casting clear PR around them? Any suggestions welcome. Thanks,

Bruce

 

[les-smith]

I just made my first Polymer Clay pen today. It turned out ok as a test pen. I used a CA finish, but I only put on two coats. Here is a posting that has a link to one of Jay Pickens pages that shows a lot of work where he encapsulated the clay in Resin:
http://www.penturners.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=19204&SearchTerms=clay


Here is a post where YoYoSpin talks about finishing a Clay pen:
http://www.penturners.org/forum/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=4038&SearchTerms=clay


johncrane talks in this one about dropping a pen several times on concrete to see if it would break and finally ended up throwing it on the concrete to get it to break. Interesting.
http://www.penturners.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=19510&SearchTerms=clay

Here is another that I thought was good:
http://www.penturners.org/forum/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=916&SearchTerms=polymer+clay


I'm looking forward to working with the clay and seeing how it turns out. There is a question of durability from what I can read, but I'll put my test pen through its paces and see how it holds up. I'm going to continue to finish using CA. It seemed to turn out just fine. I don't have the equipment to encapsulate the clay in resin, but I bet that's the best thing to do. Anyways, hope this helps.

 

[BRobbins629]

Thanks Les - Looks like I may do one with CA and one with PR.

 

[BobNashvillega]

I have made several here is one

 

[johncrane]

G'Day Bruce l am glad to here your trying clay pens,its alot
off fun' l finished some pens in thin CA about 10 or 12 coats.
l also have cast the clay in clear resin after getting
some feedback
from Jay Pickens which worked well, just a tip that might help you. seal the ends of the blanks in thin ca before you turn them.
This is a pen in clear casting resin that l did last year,its a theme pen of a kangaroo caught in a bushfire.

 

[BRobbins629]

Thanks John.. Once again the IAP comes through with a great head start. At first I didn't see the kangaroo, but what a great idea. I can see many places to take this concept. As usual for me, there are too many ideas and not enough time. I hadn't thought of clay until my niece wanted to do some together and now we have a collection of 3 - all about 6 coats of CA/BLO and still solid after a week. Next round will include some PR casts for sure. If we get much more of this and we'll have to start clay forum.