We know that MixQuick belongs in every Fimo artist’s toolbox. But why? If you have ever worked with polymer clay you know that old clay can get hard. Never fear, you can actually save even hardest clay. I had a block I used for a necklace almost six years ago and I got it back to an almost new state.
Here I would like to show you how I do it with the slightly harder Fimo and their MixQuick conditioner.
Like I say, life is too short to knead hard Fimo until it is soft, and you know me, I like to make things as simple as possible!
My favorite little helper when it comes to hard Fimo is my trusty carrot kitchen grater.
I start by laying out some Seran wrap over the counter to catch the crumbs and keep my kitchen safe since polymer clay will eat up certain types of plastic. Then I put the kitchen grater on it and begin grating the hard Fimo. The Seran wrap is important since the crumbs really will go everywhere, and nobody wants a Fimo sprinkle mess.
One disadvantage of the kitchen grater is that you can cut yourself if you aren’t careful like I have in the past. I usually don’t use them unless I have no other option.
Once I have it broken down into a sandy pile I place some chunks of MixQuick around so that it can soften the hard polymer clay. I then wrap it up nice and tight with the ceranwrap and leave it set for at least 24 hours.
Now that you have the hard part done you can begin with the fun part. Kneeding. I usually use a noodle machine for this process but if you Fimo is really hard you might need to work it by hand first until you get a workable mass. THis can be cumbersom and take a long time depending on how much clay you need to condition.
Still, I hope you do not have too much old / hard Fimo laying about because this can be a trying job. But if so just try to have fun with the processing stage, afterall, it is part of the sculpting process!
Oh one more thing when it comes to make your old clay usable again, do not save on the wrong end, buy the MixQuick. It is cheaper than a new block of clay. And do not, I repeat DO NOT come to the idea to use oil or whatever else you may put in there there is no alternative. Imagine how – haha, funny – it would be if you invested your precious time in your expensive Fimo and are too cheap for MixQuick and it just ruins everying. Don’t do that to your Fimo. And certainly do not do that to yourself.
One thing to note, never use more than a third of the overall weight of MQ when you do this, you will lower the quality of the Fimo if you do.