What does “conditioning” mean? And why should you condition polymer clay?  This article answers those questions and demonstrates a quick method of how to condition polymer clay with a pasta machine. 

All polymer clay artists condition their clay before they start to work with it.  Conditioning basically means “making clay soft and flexible enough to work with”.

If you don’t condition the clay then it might be too hard and crumbly to work with, and the final piece might even break.

 

(If you don’t have a pasta machine yet, maybe read this post first: Five things to look for when buying pasta machines for polymer clay)

 

How to condition polymer clay with a pasta machine:

(In the example below, I’ve used two colours of clay because then it will be really obvious when the clay has been thoroughly mixed. But the process will be the same whether you are using just one colour/block of clay, or several different colours of scrap clay.)

Step 1) 

Make sure that the pasta machine rollers are on the widest/thickest setting. Depending on your machine it will be either the lowest or the highest number on the dial. 

2) Cut the block/s of clay into pieces of approximately the same width as the gap between the rollers in the pasta machine. (Because if you try to force a thicker wedge of clay through the rollers it will damage the machine.) Roll each piece through the machine once:how to condition polymer clay with a pasta machine - cut to width of gap

 

3) Join pieces together in pairs, and send them through the pasta machine again:

conditioning clay- press two pieces of clay together.jpg

 

4) Once the paired pieces have gone through the machine, join those pieces in pairs as well, and send them through the machine again. Keep pairing pieces until they are all joined together:

conditioning clay- join paired pieces together

 

5) Fold the sheet in half once:

conditioning clay- fold sheet

 

6) Send it through the thickest setting of the pasta machine (with the fold going through the rollers first):

conditioning clay- roll folded sheet through pasta machine

 

7) Keep folding the sheet and sending it through the pasta machine (remembering to always send the sheet through the machine with the fold going through the rollers first). Every 3-4 times that the sheet goes through the rollers, you can adjust the machine’s dial to a slightly thinner setting, which will help to mix the clay more quickly. 

Once your polymer clay is flexible and easy to work with, then it is conditioned. Well done! (It usually also has a waxy-looking shine.)

Fully conditioned clay:

how to condition polymer clay with a pasta machine - fully conditioned clay

 

It might be tempting to skip conditioning or rush through it, but doing that will make your project much harder. If clay is hard or crumbly then it will be really frustrating to work with, and the end results will be very unpredictable. By investing just a couple of minutes at the start of each polymer clay project, you should hopefully ensure that the clay is at its best, and actually save time in the long run.

Here are some other articles on how and why to condition clay:

 

…and here are some links to pasta machines from Amazon: (Click here)

I hope you found this article useful. I am in the process of creating a YouTube video as well, to demonstrate the process. So if you prefer videos to reading, please check back here soon!

In the meantime if you are looking for a pasta machine to start conditioning your clay, then here is a link to some info about pasta machines.