Another extruder trick- making rope

As long as I am on the extruder thing, I thought I would post this. You can use this for twisted beads using the bead corers if you want, but I am just going to show how to make a rope the easy way.

Mix up and condition your color choice of clay. I am using the violet Cernit mixed 1:1 with the

porcelain white Cernit, 1. because I had it left over from the cloisonne beads I made before and 2. because the violet color of Cernit is so wonderfully beautiful.

Roll out a little coil or plug of clay that is about 2 1/2" long and slightly smaller in diameter than the inside diameter of the Makin's Clay Extruder barrel. You will also need the cloverleaf disk that comes with the Clay Extruder.

Put the disk in to the end cap and the clay in to the barrel, put the end cap and disk on the end of the clay extruder and screw it on.

Screw down the handle of the extruder until the clay starts coming out the end of the extruder, continue until you have extruded all of the clay out of the gun. It does about 12". Cut in to 4" pieces for easier control and to practice with. Hold one end of the extruded cloverleaf and with your other hand and roll the other end gently away from you. This will twist up the cloverleaf and you will have a rope just like that.

You can use these for all kinds of things, beads, like I said before or making into shapes. I am sure there are tons of other things you can come up with using this rope.

Here is a heart I made out of this rope.

Also you can use it to wrap around cut out shapes. When I used to make custom wedding couples many years ago they would stand on a large cut out heart and I would wrap this rope coil around the heart to camouflage the cut edges...and besides that it looked very cool. I love those 2 birds, one stone things.

So if you condition your clay and roll it out on the thickest setting in your pasta machine or about an 1/8" thick and fold the clay in half to double the thickness, then you can cut out a shape with a cutter. The cutter I am using here is a 1" round Kemper cutter, yes, you heard me right they make them now. Sometimes Howard needs to be booted in the pants to get him load things up on the website, so you just write him at order(at)clayfactory.net and tell him you would love to have one of those 1" round kemper cutters. Substitute that word (at) for the sign. Tell him Marie sent you.

Once you have the shape, then you take the rope and place it around the shape. Cut the leading edge of the rope with your clay blade for straight edge first.

Wrap completely around the shape and the end of the coil will overlap the beginning end of the coil. Cut off the outside one there and butt the edges together, I used to do this on the hearts and begin and end the rope in between the lobes of the heart.

I hope you all are have a GREAT weekend.

Extruder beads

I am going to use this ochre color Cernit formulation again, I have some left over from making the beads and it will match the beads that I have already made. Yes, I do have a plan for these. Stay tuned.

You will need a Makin's professional extruder and the Bead core adapters in the small set and one of the small round dies that come with the clay gun set. There are also two sets of 10 different dies that can be purchased extra. I am going to use the smallest bead core adapter 1mm to make these beads.

This is what that looks like with some of the disks that are available, the bead corers, and the Makin's clay extruder. You see that small arrow in the bottom left corner of the picture pointing to the bead corer disk and the disk that is in the extruder end cap, those are the ones I used for these beads. The long extruded coils in the top of the picture are the bead coils with a hole inside them baked and waiting to be sliced with the clay blade that you see right next to the green extruder. Those little beads that you see under the coils waiting to be cut are the cut beads ready to be used in a design. I can not even begin to convey how much I love this tool. With all of the disks that are available with the clay extruder, I can make all kinds of beads myself that match my clay beads and focal pieces exactly and I can also extrude clay rods to build canes with too (more on this later).

Place the disk you want to use in the fitting on the end of the gun and then put the core adapter into the hole of the disk with the rod of the adapter coming out the center of the disk as shown. Condition and soften some of the ochre clay (or clay color of your choice) until it is soft and smooth, roll into a coil about two inches long and slightly smaller than the diameter of the barrel of the clay extruder. Place the clay in to the barrel and screw on the end fitting with the disk and the core adapter in it on to the end of the barrel of the clay extruder. Now screw the handle down until the clay starts to come out the hole of the disk.

Here you can see the clay starting to come out of the hole in the disk. Continue to screw down the handle and the clay will keep coming out. Do this until all the clay is out of the gun and you can not move the handle anymore.

Here is what the end of the coil looks like with the hole in it and a coil of the bead. These can be baked now in strips as long as your baking tray or cut in to sections maybe 5" long. After they are baked and cooled you cut them into any size you want.