Polymer Clay
Posted on Sunday, January 11th, 2009 at 8:18 amHow do you insert an eye pin into a fired polymer clay piece?
The fired polymer clay piece would be thick, as in a food-shaped pendant. I'm told that after a couple minutes of heating the clay would be rubbery and soft and I could glue it in. But, the eye pin would go in easily without affecting the surrounding areas? (as in creating a sunken in effect) and er, how do I handle the piece, should I wear latex gloves or something?
Thanks! I'm a complete novice!
You can insert the shank of an eye pin, etc., into polymer clay before it's cured (the most common way) or after it's cured.
Polymer clay *will* soften somewhat after baking when reheated (or while it's still warm from heating the first time), so it can be cut with a sharp blade, for example, at that point. But I don't think an eyepin is sharp enough or stiff enough to do the same thing, and generally that wouldn't be a good technique for doing it anyway.
There are several ways that you could put the shank of an eye pin (or something else) into *baked* clay though --by making a hole first. You can do that in several ways:
..."drill" a hole with a tiny drill bit (by hand with the bit in a "pin vise" tool, Xacto handle, or a polymer clay handle you've made, or put the bit in a hand or electric drill)
...or, make a hole by getting the tip of a safety pin red hot in a flame (while holding with pliers!), then quickly shove it into the baked clay-- you'll see a tiny puff of smoke (don't inhale, please) and a tiny corkscrew of clay will come out
Once you have a hole, you can glue in the end of an eye pin, etc., with a bit of instant glue or 2 -part epoxy, or even E-6000 if there won't be much stress on it.
You can embed an eye pin into RAW clay though "without messing up the surrounding areas" by making a tiny hole with a pointed tool that's only a tiny bit larger in diameter than the eye pin's shank, then inserting the shank (*preferably* bent or zigzagged for the strongest result, or else use a bit of liquid clay on the shank), and simply snugging the clay back up around it.
You can use your fingers alone to snug and smooth, or roll over the areas with tiny rods like knitting needles, etc.
Some people like to cut a *slit* in the clay with the tip of a blade rather than start with a round hole, then insert their zigzagged shank into the clay in the same plane as the slit, and snug the clay back around, which can be even better.
(Creating a "mechanical hold" on the clay by bending or zigzagging the shank will give by far the strongest result, and no glue at all will be required.)
There are a couple of pages at my polymer clay "encyclopedia" that have lessons and discussions about doing those things:
...this page has info on putting eye pins, eye screws and similar things into *one side* of a clay object (like a pendant or dangle), and much more detail on the "snugging back" methods:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/pendants_cording.htm
(...click on the category called FULL LOOPS in particular)
...and this page has more on just making holes in raw or baked clay (which is often done when one wants to make holes *all the way through* the clay, for an eye pin or head pin, etc.), or sometimes one may simply want to enlarge a hole already made in baked clay:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/beads-holes.htm
As for wearing gloves, if the clay is *too hot* to handle and you need to handle it, wear thick gloves or just use a towel or hot pad.
You won't need to use latex gloves (or other protective gloves) when normally handling raw polymer clay UNLESS you turn out to be one of the few who get rashes from it. And some people use thin gloves of various types just to avoid getting fingerprints on raw clay, but there are all kinds of ways to avoid that without having to wear gloves:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/sculpture.htm
(...click on FINGERPRINTS, SMOOTHING)
HTH,
Diane B.
P.S. Since you're a "complete novice," you might want to check out all the rest of the lessons, info and examples I have at my site re making all kinds of polymer clay things:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/contents.htm
(...scroll all the way down that page... when you see something you want to investigate, click on the name of the relevant page from inside the alphabetical navigation bar on the left)
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