SUPER HEATING

I promised this to Betty Lou and I finally got around to doing it so here goes.
Polymer clay is wonderful stuff. It has a good deal of strength on its own but we can increase the strength of the final product by doing two things; cold bath and super heat.
We have touched on these two procedures before in past postings but it never hurts to do it again.
COLD BATH is simply taking the figure out of the oven while it is hot (just as the curing cycle ends) and placing it in the freezer, refrigerator, snow bank, etc. The idea is to drop the temperature as fast as you can. This will help stop cracks from the cooling process. It works, I have done over 70 pieces this way by now. I used to use a cold water bath but no longer do as it is hard to get the water out of these small figures and polymer clay grows mold very well.
SUPER HEATING adds additional flexibility and strength to the clay.

 STEP 1: Sculpt your piece. Here I have done a fast sculpt of a male hand to demonstrate. You need to pay attention to the sheen on the surface of the clay as we progress. This shiny clay is uncured at this point; notice the sheen to the surface.
Be sure all sharp ridges are smoothed down before curing. These ridges will scorch when you hit them with the heat gun.

STEP 2: Bake at the clay manufacturers recommendations. This is the same hand after curing in the oven. Baked clay will have a "flat" appearance. There is a little shine to the clay but not as much as the raw clay shows.

STEP 3; Super heat the clay. Use a standard heat gun (paint stripper) to super heat the clay. Stay about 4" away from the clay and keep the gun moving around. Focus the heat on the bulk of the hand, not the fingers. You need to alter the structure of the hand as well as the fingers or they will just snap at the base of the finger where they meet the "old"clay. Once the hand is heated you will move up the fingers to superheat them as well. This will take about 45 seconds to do a hand.

This is the super heated hand. Note the sheen to the surface. This is the end point you want to reach.
BE CAREFUL! The gun can reach temps of 1,000 degrees so it will scorch and burn if you are not careful! (see the little scorch mark on the back of the hand)










The images below show how much bend you can get when you super heat. This is done while still warm from the process. Once they cool, they will have less bend but still resist breaking .