http://www.forrestrace.com/lampwork-tool/
Can I fire “sculpey” type clay wrapped around glass or glass bead?
I don’t have the money or tools to make my own lampwork beads, but I’d like to take a glass bead and apply some sculpey to it in the form of a star fish. Can you wrap/apply sculpey clay to glass and bake them together? I checked their website but I’m not sure.
Yes, I will “glue” the starfish etc back onto the glass after all have been fired. I just want the starfish to have the shape of wrapping around the glass.
I would love to make something like this – her beads are beautiful but I cannot afford them!
http://www.stephaniebeads.com/images/0002.html
You can definitely cure (at low temp in a home oven/etc, not really “fire” in a kiln) polymer clay and glass together.
Polymer clay won’t stick really well on things like slick glass and metal after baking though unless the clay forms a mechanical hold (e.g., wrapping the clay or a starfish-shaped clay onlay more than half-way around the bead). You can try holding onlays on by applying liquid polymer clay between glass and clay, but if you can pop that off after baking, you’ll have to glue the baked bit on with 2-part epoxy glue, E6000, or perhaps a superglue.
Another consideration is that if clay is applied *completely*over a material that swells or contracts when heated/cooled (like thick glass), that can sometimes cause cracking of polymer clay (there are ways to keep that from happening if it does though, like cooling and heating gradually, applying a white glue underneath the clay as a buffer, etc.).
You can find all kinds of info about using polymer clay around, or just on, glass on these pages of my polymer clay “encyclopedia” site if you’re interested in lessons, examples, tips, etc:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/covering.htm
…click on GLASS & Ceramic
http://glassattic.com/polymer/onlay.htm
…click on DIMENSIONAL ONLAYS
Keep in mind that you may not want to use most of the lines of “Sculpey” polymer clay when doing *thin* things like coverings or thin onlays though because 3 of the Sculpey lines will be brittle after baking in those situations and easily breakable: original Sculpey, SuperSculpey-flesh, and Sculpey III (….Kato Polyclay, FimoClassic, Premo, and Cernit would be much stronger… and FimoSoft would be in-between).
Since you’re interested in “lampwork” too, are you aware that glass-like lampwork effects can be created on clay (or on other surfaces) with tinted liquid polymer clay too?
If you’re interested in that, check out this page too:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/LiquidSculpey.htm
…click on DRIZZLING near bottom of list at top of page
There are also pages at my site that cover polymer clay beads in general, jewelry, pendants, etc… check the Table of Contents page to see all the topics that are discussed there:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/contents.htm
HTH,
Diane B.
Lampwork Tools