13.12.07 Good news and Bad news with Polymer clay experience - Chapter II

Today's experiment was to check the old oven that we have with a Sculpy thermometer. I first checked only with the thermometer in order to get a scale of the actual temperatures.

I checked the temperature after 10 mn in each level, starting from the lowest. Here are the results:

#1=~50 C

#2=75 C

#3=100 C

#4=~125 C

#3-#4=~125 C

#9=230~250 C

From curiosity, I checked the so called "100 C" in my toaster-oven, on grill from both sides - and guess what?- It was actually 125 C! The Fimo I was trying to bake few months ago burnt there after 5 mn, wonder why... What a stinky fume there was... I will never use anymore this awful toaster-oven. Never!

What to start with - the bad or the good news?

Let's start from the bad.

I made some more polymer clay balls with the same colours and product as yesterday.

I checked them after 20 mn in the oven on #3 (=~110-120 C) and tried to smash them. All of them had started to break, most with deep fractures. I thought maybe the fact that I didn't let them get cold a bit, caused them to crack. I still let them for 10 more mn (total of 30 mn) at the same temperature.

Now again, I tried to break/smash them and you can see what happened; none of them are conserved (even the blue has some cracks from the first smash, but I couldn't break it):

You want to know the good news? - My oven can bake polymer clay without burning it!!!

So now I can use the Microwave for Sculpy clay and Oven for all the clays! :)

I summarized the results in the following picture:

I still need to find the courage to keep on, till I find the right conditions, but I feel I am on a better way than last time...