How Do I cook Polymer clay?

Question

I made a clay head, it is about the size of my palm, and about 3 in. in diamater. I also made a couple of flat pieces. What tempature, and how long should I cook these? I live in america, so please use approperate units.

I don't have the package, I lost it

Answer 1

How long you bake it (and the exact temperature) to use would depend on a few things:
...the brand of clay you're using, and sometimes it's color
...how thick the clay is
...what type of oven or other equipment you're using to cure it

This page at my polymer clay encyclopedia website gives all kinds of info on baking most polymer clay items:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/baking.htm
Notice also the subcategories on that page about "Darkening"... translucent clays (or those with a lot of translucent in them like SuperSculpey, or even some colors) will darken more easily at the regular baking temps... the lighter colors of some brands will too; so you might want to check out that category on ways to avoid that if possible.

Having said that, I'm concerned about the head you're about to bake.
It's recommended that polymer clay not be more than about 1 1/4" thick when it's solid clay, because it may tend to crack during heating or cooling. Generally, if a head (or anything else) needs to be that large, a non-clay "armature" will be used underneath the clay to avoid those problems (like scrunched bal of aluminum foil, wood ball--acrylic painted or sealed, etc.... or they can actually be made hollow in a number of ways, though less commonly).

This page has more info about making and baking polymer clay heads in particular...so you might want to read it as well:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/heads_masks.htm
(... click especially on the subcategory *Cracking*...)

If your head is solid, and as thick as 3", you may want to cut it somewhere and dig out some of the clay, replacing it with aluminum foil, etc.... or just follow the suggestions for avoiding cracking on that page, then be prepared to patch it if it does cracks (there's info about that also on the page).

P.S. Thinness of the clay can be a problem too when baking, btw... especially if you're using one of the more brittle clays (like Sculpey, SuperSculpey, Sculpey III, or to a lesser extent FimoSoft). Those clays will be more breakable after baking in any thin or projecting areas. Premo, FimoClassic, Kato Polyclay, and Cernit are the stronger brands in the U.S.


HTH,

Diane B.

Answer 2

read the pagage to se the baking tem and time 4 it to cook