crafts - Pasta Machine Question

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Pasta Machine Question

I have an Atlas and even though I clean the rollers with alcohol daily
and keep the machine covered with Saran wrap when not in use, I find
that sometimes when I put clay through it that I get these little
black smudges of dirt in the clay. Sometimes they are small streaks,
sometimes they look like little bits of string. What puzzels me is
they appear randomly and just every now and then - you'd think that
once I picked up the dirt by running some clay through it once or
twice, that would be it but no matter how thoroughly I clean, it still
appears.

Has anyone else experienced this and did you come up with a solution.

Thanks
Rachel

Rachel, this is a common problem--look over at www.glassattic.com for more
info. Consensus over the years seems to be that there's some sort of oxidation
going on/grease inside the rollers themselves. I tend towards the oxidation
theory. Are you using Sculpey? It has a waterbased plasteciser AND a oil based
one, the others have mostly oil based plasticisers. It would oxidize more....
Sarajane

Sarajane's Polymer Clay Gallery
http://www.polyclay.com

Sarajane,

Why do I always forget to check your site first. Everything anyone
wants to know about streaking is there. THANKS SJ!

Rachel

Rachel, this is a common problem--look over at www.glassattic.com for more
info. Consensus over the years seems to be that there's some sort of oxidation
going on/grease inside the rollers themselves. I tend towards the oxidation
theory. Are you using Sculpey? It has a waterbased plasteciser AND a oil based
one, the others have mostly oil based plasticisers. It would oxidize more....
Sarajane

Sarajane's Polymer Clay Gallery
http://www.polyclay.com

What a great idea!!!

Rachel

FWIW, I don't seem to have much problem with streaking, maybe partly
because I don't use my machine to condition and don't make drastic size
reductions. For conditioning, I prefer a small meat grinder.

Helen "Halla" Fleischer,
Fantasy & Fiber Artist in Fairland, MD USA
http://home.covad.net/~drgandalf/halla/

Liana Sutton wrote in news:lms-8B90AF.07532429122003
@newsr1.tampabay.rr.com:

Hello all. I was wondering, as I have the same pasta machine and the
same streaking problem, if there is ever a way to roll light colored
clay through the machine without getting streaks? I am trying to
transfer onto white FIMO, and I do use the pasta machine to knead and
condition the clay. FIMO is so hard and crumbly, I can't get it to join
together unless I run it through the atlas first.

If I am going to use light clay, I usually run some light scrap clay
through to pick up the biggest gunk, and then just clean the rollers with
alcohol. Also, I try not to put too thick a piece through for the setting,
as it seems to cause streaking. This mostly gets rid of streaking for me,
although there always seems to be a scrap of old dark clay lurking for the
white clay. :/ I actually have a second pasta machine, waiting for the day
that I'm going to make some pasta (yeah, right... but one can dream). I
have thought about dedicating that one for white clay, and the other for
everything else.

If you use Classic Fimo try Fimo Soft, as it doesn't need as much
conditioning. I usually use a mixture of these two, depending on what I'm
doing.

--
//Christina Hellström http://www.geocities.com/chellstr/
(Remove stuffing to reply)