Polymer Clay Test: White Clay

 

Watch the video here.

Last week I showed you the translucent clay that I had added onto my recent Michael’s order. I got this block of white Craftsmart clay in the same order. I was in need of some white clay and I was curious when I saw this because the price was lower than the same size block of Original Sculpey. I think I paid around $13 for this 1 pound block of clay. If I like it that is a really good price.

What I am expecting before I open it is for it to be soft and similar to the Original Sculpey clay.

Upon opening I did find it to be a bit softer than the Sculpey but not by a long way. By the time both were completely conditioned they had a very similar texture. I did not like that the Craftsmart brand left white residue on my fingers though.

The other brand of white clay I have on hand is part of a block of Original
by Sculpey. It is much firmer than the Original Sculpey and more suited to doing things where I want to have fine details.

To set up the test I grabbed my clay roller, clay blade, some sets homemade spacers for rolling the clay, a small round cutter, my chalks with their brush, and a new paper plate. I marked the paper plate into 3 areas for the 3 brands of clay.

Once I was set up (and had the oven heating) I conditioned a ball of each of the 3 clays.

I proceeded to work with each clay. I rolled out the clay using my single layer guides and cut 2 circles. That way I could leave one white and add some chalk to the other one. I also used my double layer guides to roll out thicker slabs of clay and cut 1 circle of each clay from the double thick piece of clay.

I am looking at several things in this test. First off I am looking at the unbaked texture of the clay. How easy are they to condition? I am looking at how smoothly they each roll out, do I get excessive finger prints on any of them? Once baked, what color is the clay? Is it a nice bright white or is it an off-white? Did the clay remain the same size? I have been working with polymer clay for over 30 years and I have never seen one that shrinks but, as my dad always said there’s a first time for everything so I am looking at that. I added chalk to one of the circles of each brand to see if there was a lot of difference in how well the chalk stayed in place once baked.

I did check the package instructions for temperature and baking time. The Craftsmart has exactly the same directions/temperature as the Scupley products.

I baked the samples at 250°F, (the packages all called for 275°but my oven has a bad habit of going higher than I set it) for 15 minutes.

I then allowed the clay to come back to room temperature.

The first thing I noticed was how nice and white the Craftsmart clay came out. It looks great. All the clays baked up nice and smooth.

As for the chalk test there was conditioned the Craftsmart did wipe of slightly easier than the other brands. The Premo held the chalk the best of the three.

Here are some close up photos of all three clays so you can see for yourself how they came out.

So my thoughts overall, I am much happier with the clay than I really thought I would be. It came out very white, it is easy to work with. It is very soft fresh from the package, even softer than the Original Sculpey but once conditioned I think it seems to be nicer to work with, other than that bit of residue that it left on my fingers.

So if you are looking for a less expensive white clay I would say check this one out. It won’t work for everything and I doubt it will be suitable when I want to make a project that has fine details since you really need a firmer clay for detail work. But for those projects that don’t have the really fine details and if you want to give your hands a rest and just have some fun with the clay I like this stuff.

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