You should be periodically cleaning your pasta machine to remove buildup that accumulates on the rollers and guide blades. Overtime, the plasticizers from clay can cause a chemical reaction with steel rollers resulting in black streaks in your clay. In addition to cleaning your rollers, it’s also important to clean the guide blades because it accumulates clay deposits that can contaminate new colors of clay. 

You may continue reading, but if you’re like me who prefers to listen and see, you can watch in video format:

Clean the Pasta Machine Rollers

To clean the rollers, grab a paper towel and dab with few drops of mineral or olive oil and wipe the rollers as you crank the handle. You can also clean the body of the pasta machine while you are at it. If you are on a time crunch, you can also use baby wipes to clean the rollers in between different colors of clay.

Clean Pasta Machine Guide Blades

To clean the blades turn your machine over and you should see two guide blades beneath each roller. Guide blades help lift the flattened clay off the rollers. Stickier clays tend to increase the level of buildup that occurs. The bottom guide blade usually has the most clay deposits, but the top one can sometimes have it too.

Use either baby wipes, toothpicks, or a Q tip with a little oil to run it along each blade to remove the buildup. Normally, right at the tip of the guide blade is where you’ll see the clay deposits (I usually run a toothpick along that area to loosen it up bits of clay), then follow with a Qtip. It helps if you already cleaned the rollers with oil, because some of that drips down to the guide blades making it easier to clean. You can also clean the top guide blade by wiping it with a paper towel.

After cleaning the guide blades, crank your machine to wipe the blades again with a dry paper towel since some of the residue you removed from the blades may have rubbed onto the rollers and don’t want to leave too much oil on the surface either.

Then follow by repeatedly rolling a large sheet of scrap clay though the machine to pick up any loosened bits of clay.

Additional Pasta Machine Care Tips

In order to reduce the amount of time spent cleaning your machine between different colors of clays, it’s recommended to start with light to dark clays. Also using firmer clays will reduce the amount of clay deposits. And if you have the budget, have two pasta machines — one for lighter and one for darker colors.

Read this guide on how to properly care for your pasta machine to reduce wear and tear, and avoid permanent damage: Ultimate Pasta Machine Care Guide (Tips & Tricks)

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Read this before using a pasta machine for clay.

Nearly all clay work can be done with an acrylic roller, but a pasta machine reduces the amount of laboring and time needed to do numerous tasks and techniques.

In this guide I talk about some tips for caring & handling your pasta machine which will reduce wear and tear — allowing your machine to last much longer — and I will go over how to deal with 5 of the most common issues you might face when working with one.

You may continue reading, but if you’re like me who prefers to listen and see, you can watch in video format:

Pasta Machine Care:

My first tip, is be gentle with your pasta machine:

A good rule of thumb is to avoid rolling clay that is more than double the thickness of any setting on the dial of your pasta machine. Forcing too much clay through any setting can result in permanent damage to your pasta machine over time. You will know if this has occurred if clay consistently sticks to the rollers on the thinnest settings. This is an indication that the guide blades beneath may be bowed or that the alignment of the rollers might be compromised. This causes a gap that prevents the blades from lifting the clay off of the rollers.

To prevent pasta machine roller damage, slice your clay into thin sheets and then roll it through your machine through the largest setting. You may have to pick up small pieces and stick them back together and keep running it through the rollers. Gradually reduce the thickness settings to speed up the conditioning process. The reason for this is that the thinner settings help work more surface area. You can feed it again by folding it in half or folding the sides, I personally do a combination of both. Just be sure to make sure the folds are never at the top to avoid air bubbles.

If the clay crumbles when rolling, knead crumbled pieces a bit with the warmth of your hands or do some initial rolling with your acrylic roller.

1. Horizontal Streaks/Ridges

Horizontal Streaks or Ridges — Almost all pasta machines may show some horizontal ridges in your clay. It may be hard to see, but sometimes you’ll see faint colorless horizontal steaks in your sheets of clay due to the clay rubbing against the rollers. And it’s usually not noticeable after the baking, sanding and polishing process. However, they may be more likely to show if you’re using the thickest or thinnest settings of your pasta machine.

Also, these lines may get more pronounced as your machine wears out overtime, especially through rough handling of your pasta machine. However, if the lines do bother you, here are two things you can do.

1. After you finish rolling your clay, rotate your clay at a 90 degree angle and feed it through the machine again, this should reduce the appearance of those horizontal lines.
   
2. The second option is to place a sheet of parchment paper on top of your clay and smooth it by burnishing your acrylic roller back and forth. This does not mean to roll the roller, but rather rub the clay in order to smooth out the lines.
   

2. Rippling & Chattering

Another issue you might face is Rippling or Chattering. The image to the left demonstrate the effects of Rippling, where a portion of the clay is being stretched because the clay sticks to both rollers as opposed to one. In the image to the right show the effects of chattering which occurs when clay sticks to the blade and releases after pressure builds up and then sticks to it again.

Both issues often occurs on a thinner setting when using overly sticky clay. To resolve this, you could use a firmer brand of clay or apply a backing sheet as you roll your clay — I talk about clay firmness of different clay brands in my Polymer Clay Review Tutorial.

If the rippling issue is caused by wear and tear on your machine, using two machines can alleviate this problem by using the compromised one for more intensive things like conditioning & color mixing, while the other for passing through final sheets through thinner settings.

3. Black Streaks

Black Steaks is another common issue that can occur. Overtime, the steel rollers of your pasta machine may have a chemical reaction with the plasticizer in the clay. This can cause black vertical streaks of oily-looking residue on your clay which tend to show up along the outside edges or on the rollers itself. This can be prevented by periodically cleaning your rollers.

4. Scratched Rollers

To avoid Scratched Rollers — avoid putting any clay containing inclusions through your machine. Inclusions like glitter may get stuck all over your machine and become near impossible to remove. Other inclusions may get struck on the blade. You can remove them by running a sheet of baby wipe through the rollers. At worse, inclusions might scratch your rollers or you may end up with a nicked blade (which might be smoothed out using sandpaper, however, it would involve disassembling your pasta machine).

5. Pasta Machine Crank Dropping Off

And lastly, if your pasta machine handle keeps falling off, please note that it’s not you, this is a common problem for many pasta machine users. You can prevent this by putting a bit of duck tape on the handle to help secure it in place. It really depends on your machine, i’ve heard them some like to cut the tip of a rubber glove instead and them jam it in with hammer. But for me a small piece of tape is enough for it to not accidentally fall out, while still making it possible to pull it back out even while there’s some resistance.

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Create Bulls Eye Canes, Gradient Loaves and Ribbons (Easy Basket Weave Pattern).

Hi everyone, this is a beginner tutorial on how to create simple canes, loaves and ribbons with polymer clay. In my previous tutorial I walked through how to create a gradient sheets which will be used for the polymer clay techniques in this tutorial. If you haven’t seen that one, it might be really helpful to go over the gradient sheets tutorial first by clicking this link and read it in a separate tab and then come back to this one.

You may read the text below as an outline for what to do, but if you’re like me who prefers to listen and see, you can watch in video format:

Stretching Gradient Sheets

Before we start on our canes, you want to stretch the sheet. And what I mean is that it’s easier to work with a short wide cane than a long narrow one. Since you can go through a process called cane reduction in order to reduce a wide cane into various sizes in diameter and length. You can always size down in cane circumference, but it’s more trickier to size up.

The purpose of this is to prepare your gradient sheet to become long and skinny as opposed to wide and short. With a long and skinny gradient, you can turn it into a bullseye cane or gradient cane (gradient loaf).

1. After you’ve created your gradient sheet from Skinner Blends video, trim off some of the edges to make the clay more uniform, then cut the sheet in half and stack one half over the other (see large image above).
2. Roll the strip through the largest setting of your pasta machine while maintaining control by gently guiding the clay though the rollers. Continue running the clay through the rollers while reducing the thickness setting each time, until you reach the 5th setting. 
   
3. Now you have a stretched sheet of clay at the perfect size for canning.

Creating Easy Gradient Cane

Create Gradient Log

1. To create a simple gradient cane, decide on what color you’d like to start off at the center. For this example i’ll start off with the center being yellow and it’ll gradate to mauve.
2. Also, make sure you place your sheet on the surface as straight as possible which will make the rolling process more even.
3. This next step isn’t required, but it helps in creating a tight compact roll which is important in preventing trapped air between layers. Roll a thin log and place it at the end of the sheet where you’ll start the core of the cane (see large image above).
4. Roll the sheet of clay onto the snake being firm, but being careful not to press down too hard that you might distort the clay.
   

Trim Gradient Log

• The next step would be to trim the opposite ends with a sharp blade. However, it helps if you allow your cane to rest for several hours before slicing so it can regain firmness, making it easier to get clean crisp slices. If you can’t wait, you can freeze your cane for 10 to 15 minutes before cutting. In this video, I didn’t have to time to do either so you’ll see my clay may get pinched in some areas by the pressure of my xacto knife since this is mainly for demo purposes and to show you why it helps to ensure your clay is firm again before cutting.

Cane Reduction

• After that you want to apply a method called Cane Reduction which reduces the size of the cane, but also helps release air trapped between the layers, prevents the layers from falling apart, reduces internal distortion and gapes in the cane slices. There are various ways to reduce a cane using compression and stretching techniques, but for starters, you can gently squeeze the cane on one end with your index fingers and thumbs while frequently rotating to keep the reduction consistent on all sides.

Now you’ve created a cane that you use to create repeatable shapes. For instance you can morph the shape into a teardrop or petal, then reduce the cane into several different sizes to create flowers or other types of patterns.

Creating Gradient Loaves

Gradient loaves are essentially square canes with a gradient pattern.

1. To start off, you want to stretch your sheet in the same way you did with canning.
2. Fold the clay back and forth like an accordion in 1/2″ to 1″ wide intervals. Do not press the clay together too firmly while doing this.
   
3. Once the clay has been completely folded, gently compress the stack together with your fingers or an acrylic roller to remove any air pockets.
   
4. Trim the excess clay off at the opposite ends of the strip. You can also trim another side, but leaving one side untrimmed can give you an anchor when slicing the last bit of loaf, giving you more usable clay.
   
5. Then you can utilize cane reduction to remove any other excess air pockets in between layers of the clay.
   

Gradient loaves can be used as background sheets for small applications. You can also enlarge them by backing them with thicker layers of white clay or connect multiple sheets at 45 degree angles.

Creating Basket Weave Pattern

Ribbons are gradient loaves, but they give an illusion of a satin ribbon. When you assemble multiple ribbons, you can create the illusion of a basket-woven pattern.

• To create a ribbon, you need a gradient loaf that goes from light to dark.
  
• Slice the loaf several times and assemble two pieces together so that the lightest sides are facing inward.
  
• If needed, you can stretch certain pieces and arrange them to create a basket-woven appearance.

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