Скачать или смотреть Quenching Polymer Clay In Ice Water - Is It A Wives Tale?

Video #640: I used Premo translucent polymer clay to test for strength and clarity... watch the video to see my results... More Info: http://www.beadsandbeading.com/blog/?... Polymer Clay Tutor.

Topics Covered In This Video:

Quenching Polymer Clay right out of the oven... into ice water... is this something you should do... or not?

I used to think (because people had told me), that plunging hot polymer clay into a bath of ice water would give it strength and improve clarity to with translucent clays.

Today's test will show whether or not that is actually the case and whether it makes a difference at all.

There has been some discussion around this topic that claims the quenching process is just a wife's tale. Let's find out.

I have two sets of test samples... one was left to cool naturally, and the other is plunged into ice water while it was still hot.

Each sample set has two different chips of Premo White Translucent rolled to an 8 playing cards thickness, and the other to a 1 playing card thickness.

All of the samples were baked at 275F for 1 hour.

I tested both sets of baked samples (the quenched set and the non-quenched set), to see if there is any difference between the two... with regards to clarity and strength.

Visually, both look identical. Both of the thicker pieces have an identical yellowish hue with low translucency... and the thin samples, both have an identical whitish shade with my translucency test. I would say that these results are typical for translucent polymer clay, in general.

Next, I tested for clarity by placing thin samples against a text background, to see how well you could see through the translucent clay. The quenched clay and the non-quenched clay were identical. No improvement there... with quenching.

Hmmm... starting to think this quenching thing really is a wives tale!

Then I tested the thicker pieces for improved clarity... no difference there either.

The samples were then tested for strength. All the samples were bent, folded and torn (well.. I tried to tear them), to see if quenching improved the strength... there was no discernable difference in strength between any of the samples tested.

My conclusion... save your ice for Iced Tea or Iced Coffee, because it doesn't make a difference... except I suppose if you need your clay cool in a hurry!

Related Video: Comparing Translucent Polymer Clay Brands... http://www.beadsandbeading.com/blog/?...

Related Article: Translucent Sculpey Clay, Fimo Clay, Premo, Cernit, Kato... http://www.beadsandbeading.com/blog/?...

Related Video: Pardo Professional Art Clay Translucent Review... http://www.beadsandbeading.com/blog/?...

Related Video: Strength Test Sculpey Souffle Polymer Clay... http://www.beadsandbeading.com/blog/?...

And... more info about today's video is at my blog... http://www.beadsandbeading.com/blog/?...

Cindy Lietz & Doug Lietz Social Links:

   / polymerclaytutor  
  / polymerclay  
  / pctutor  
  / polymerclaytips  

Polymer Clay Tutor... "Make what you love... Love what you make."