Sanding Your Baked clay
Most polymer clay artists agree, sanding is a pain in the hands. It’s a crucial step in finishing your polymer clay beads or other jewelry. If done properly, sanding makes your bead twice as beautiful as when you pulled it out of the oven.
When sanding polymer clay, you use water and wet/dry sandpaper. This is the kind of paper used by auto body shops, it is primarily used on plastics and some metal for finishing. You can usually find it in auto parts stores or the auto section of larger discount stores. Hardware stores typically don’t carry anything lower than 600 grit.
The sandpaper comes in a series of grits, starting as low as 240 (very coarse) and going as high as 1800 (very fine). It is really crucial to sand using each grit in sequence. For example you don’t want to go from 400 to 800. The coarse grits leave scratches in the clay, then next grit up removes those scratches. I very rarely use 240, unless I have a piece with uneven sections of clay that need to be worn down.
You can greatly reduce the amount of sanding you need to do by smoothing out your beads or other projects before baking.
I’ve learned to use the sandpaper’s somewhat stiff properties to assist my sanding effort. For example, for a round bead, I’ll fold the sandpaper so that it comforms to the shape of the bead
Use the paper rolled into a curve to sand round objects
Tube beads are the easiest to sand
The same technique is used for tube beads, and most other curved beads. Flat beads are the easiest as you simply sand them on a flat surface.
The best tool when sanding is your own fingertip, use it to feel for ridges and bumps, sand those out. Once the item is smooth, then it’s time to move up the the next highest grit. The grits are :
Wet Dry Sandpaper for sanding polymer clay
240
320
400
600
800
1000
1200
1800
It’s not always necessary to sand above 600 and some artists never go above 600. It depends on you plans for the final finish for the project. Going up to the higher grits can produce a nice shine, but if you plan on using a buffer, you can probably produce that shine using the buffer .
The best thing to do is to experiment and find what works best for you.
When sanding usually fill a big bowl partway with warm water and a dash of dishsoap. The water cuts down on polymer dust and helps unclog the sandpaper. Once the sandpaper gets clogged, dip it in the water and use a toothbrush to remove the grit. You’ll know when it’s time to replace the sandpaper with new, as it will lose it’s effectiveness.
The dishsoap helps wash away the polymer dust from the sandpaper, it also adds some surface tension for sanding.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I cheat. I throw my beads in my tumbler with sandpaper, water, and Dawn, then walk away.
the tumbler technique doesn’t give me the control I want. I’m all about control
lunck next week?