baking fimo clay?

Question

i recently purchased fimo clay to play around with. i have never used it before and i was just wondering, what do you bake it on? can you use tin foil? we are all out of wax paper =\

Answer 1

tin foil is fine, but next time buy Sculpty III, it's tons better than filmo!

Answer 2

My preference for baking polymer clay was a glass baking pan (which would then never be used for anything else) or granite tiles. If you don't want the bottom shiny you can put a sheet of paper or light carbord (like small jewelery boxes) under it.

My real preference was the granite tiles, I had several in 12x12 size and several 6x6 size. I used to do a lot of flat pieces and I could cut them right on the granite and bake them without moving them. I would do assembly in stages, so once I got the base piece done I could move it around and add the other pieces and rebake as many times as I needed.

Answer 3

You can use tin foil to bake polymer clay on, but it will leave a shiny spot anywhere it contacts the clay during baking (polymer clays soften slightly during heating and will take on the texture of anything they're against... and foil is extremely smooth… same happens with baking directly on glass, a ceramic tile or plate, or any smooth metal).

There are actually quite a few things you can bake polymer clay on, and sometimes two are used: one to give stiffness --or softness and a pliable surface-- and one to keep the clay item from resting directly on a shiny surface if necessary.
One common “firm” set up would be a metal baking tray with a sheet of ordinary paper (or several), or a tissue (Kleenex) or sheet of parchment paper on it … that set up would work for most clay things, especially those that are at least sort of flat on one side.
Some common “soft” set-ups would be a cloud of polyester batting, a nest of tissues, a pile of cornstarch, etc…. on a stiffer surface for carrying back and forth to the oven, etc.
(few more tips:
...waxed paper is okay but not optimal because its wax will melt slightly
...glass and ceramic tiles (without a buffer of paper, etc.) can heat up hotter than the ambient air and therefore may cause darkening
...there are various ways to drape, partly enclose or completely enclose the polymer item while baking too, but that’s usually done to keep the colors from darkening excessively)

There’s loads of info on how to bake polymer clay, what to bake it on, how to avoid darkening, etc. on this page of my site:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/baking.htm

There are also differences between *brands* of polymer clay that can be important …how they handle, how easily they darken, how strong they are after baking in any thin areas, etc.
..The Sculpeys (Sculpey, SuperSculpey, Sculpey III) are the weakest in thin areas (after baking), probably the softest when raw, but bake up the “hardest”
..Premo, FimoClassic, and Kato Polyclay are the strongest clays, and better to work with once conditioned
…Premo is medium softeness when raw ...FimoClassic and Kato are stiffer (so can take more work to condition, but there are helpful ways)
…FimoSoft has a new formulation out and is now very soft… it’s probably stronger than Sculpey after baking in thin areas, but weaker than the others
..Kato changes color the least when baking… the Sculpeys change color the most

Notice that there are two different lines of "Fimo" now, and they’re quite different (FimoClassic and FimoSoft) ... there used to be only one and it was just called Fimo. As far as I know, there is no Filmo clay or polymer clay, but I have seen it misspelled that way. There are a few other brands available outside the U.S. though so Filmo could be one I don’t know about.

(In general though, FimoClassic is an excellent polymer clay for almost any purpose… Sculpey isn’t considered as “good” a polymer clay for many of the uses it could be put to, but fine for simple round beads, e.g. …FimoSoft may now be closer to what Sculpey III is, but it still isn’t as “good” as FimoClassic for many polymer uses.)

If you want any other info on using polymer clay, scroll all the way down on the Table of Contents page of my polymer clay "encyclopedia" website to see where that topic is covered... then you can go to that page from the alphabetical navigation bar on the left side of the page:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/contents.htm

HTH,

Diane B.

Answer 4

Put the tin foil on a cookie sheet for support. It will work fine.

Answer 5

http://www.hgtv.com and http://www.diynet.com have tons of project ideas and baking instructions for polymer clay. Just search "polymer clay".