Hi everyone,

The problem I facing now is about baking super sculpey: it should be baked to hard or the job will not finished forever. Yet, the one (and only one) oven at home is for cooking purpose, my family will kill me if I put a clay inside.

The worse case is: I don't have enough space for an extra oven, so what should I do? Is anyone here put super sculpey in oven for cooking purpose before? Will it contaminate the food?

Really need help now...

P.S.: of couse super sculpey is not the only choice for figure making, yet it is undoubtly a material that easy to use....that's why i insist to solve this problem

Hello Titan!

I have used all types of Sculpey and I can tell you that it is perfectly safe to run clay in the oven. Just keep it on a piece of tin foil on a cookie sheet and there shouldn't be any problems at all about contamination. Bonus, there is little to no smell either.

If it is still a problem, I suggest buying and using a dedicated toaster oven. I currently use the Maxi-Matic 4-slice which you can buy at Target or Walmart for $30 USD (assuming you live in the United States) that way it never comes into contact with the kitchen or real food. (Although I have been known to toast BLTs in my office )

I used to use my kitchen oven all the time for Sculpey and Super Sculpey. Sometimes I would pull a piece out of the oven and then put my dinner in immediately after! Reason I use a dedicated toaster oven in my office is so I don't have to travel to the other end of the house and risk dropping my piece on the carpet.

Hope this helps!

- Hiroshi

Hi Titan (great name),

Sculpey is 100% perfectly safe to cook in your kitchen oven. It does not produce fumes and will not contaminate your food. Go for it mate and happy sculpting.

I'll cook sculpey in my drybox with a 100 W bulb. Overnight and it is rockhard.

marc

I would be a little nervous about cooking Super Sculpey in your home oven. The jury is still out about vinyl sculpting materials and safety. Many of the compounds used in manufacturing have been banned in some countries. Even Polyform co. is being forced to change formulas. An excellent alternative is to use a heat gun outdoors and watch for scorching. Another method is to wrap your sculpture in an oven bag (the kind used to cook turkeys) seal it with a twist tie and cook in your oven that way. Open the bag outdoors to avoid locked in fumes.

Hope that helps

If you must use a polymer clay of one sort or another I would suggest you A work small enough that you can harden by boiling or B buy a dedicated oven for the purpose. It is not worth taking the risk that you, or a family member, has an overt toxic reaction to what comes out of the clay during baking.

Since neither of these is an ideal solution, and you say B is out of the question personally I would recommend you just learn to use a two-part clay. It's not that hard

Your opinion is that it's perfectly safe; many people in the polymer clay community would beg to differ!

This is not any sort of warranty.

Incorrect!

Einion

Try to play any kind of Sculpey with no gloves for some time and notice the nice effect on your skin. Baking it in your home oven is not safe at all, if you do not want to buy another oven use a bulb as already suggested.

Interesting thread....
I used the house oven, but it is just me and the dog, and the dog is too short to use the oven....

Almost everything we use is based on a chemical reaction, with the material either reacting with another chemical to set (like two part putty) or by oxidation/ evaporation style reactions, like acrylic paints.

It may be more accurate to say that baking sculpey gives off undetectable/ non aromatic chemicals (ie, cant be smelt) rather then no chemicals.

Acrylic paints, regarded as 'safe', still have an aroma to them; I noticed that Andreas paints have a 'sweeter' aroma then Vallejo paints.

The options of boiling sculpey, baking it in an oven bag, using a heat gun, are all sensible and accessible options.... (and boiling Sculpey is something I had forgotten about)

Like wise, the toaster oven idea is good too; I may have to examine that as a future option.

The idea of separating food and hobby makes sense, as there is no knowing what the cumulative effects of oven bake hobby clay fumes (detectable or otherwise) may be.

In defense of Sculpey, much of it is aimed at kids making small hobby stuff/ fun little cartoon figures, rather then us figure sculptors who do either bigger figures or higher volumes. * see post script
So it is probably the volume of baking (either size or frequency, or both) that has to examined with relation to health and safety.

For Australian $60 - $90 dollars, it would be a small investment to keep Lady of the house happy, add to the gadget list for the man cave, and perhaps along the way, maybe do something healthy for me and the the other house residents.....


Toaster ovens
http://www.dealsdirect.com.au/p/toaster-oven-baking-tray-grill-bake-cook-snack-oven/

http://au.shopping.com/xDN-toaster_ovens-toaster_oven

Good question.

Cheers

* PS - to clarify, the chemists who developed this, have balanced ease of use and lowest possible toxicity for the market.

as to two part epoxy - just as dangerous as I have developed a sever reaction to Magic Sculpt so be careful with anything you use a lot as there are chemical reactions going on with the Hardner and resin -(I now mix a little duru with each part and I have stopped the allegic reaction) This is not to Condemn Magic Sculpt - but to warn you to be careful with injesting the stuff (I use to 'wet' my sculpting tools with saliva -but not anymore)

Ian

Ok, next question;

If Sculpey (/ other brand polymer clays) are to be boiled, then logically, a separate pot that is only used for boiling sculpey should be used, and never used for food.

If fumes are an issue (smellable or not) then logically, when boiled, the chemical reaction will also get into the water also?

Fair question?

Cheers

ps
Past thread of boiling sculpey.....
http://www.planetfigure.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18681&highlight=boiling sculpey&page=2

Not in the same way, but yes, caution is advisable with two-part putties to avoid sensitisation.

Previous threads for anyone who wants to be cautious:
http://www.planetfigure.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14033
http://www.planetfigure.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28093

Absolutely.

And yes, separate pot would be best.

Einion

I've come to find that a dedicated everything is best. I will have to try this boiling of sculpey just because it sounds neat.

I based my opinions on the MSDS. I still think it is completely harmless but I will continue to look up some more information on this.

http://www.dick-blick.com/msds/DBH_33217XXXX.pdf

You are free to base your opinions on whatever, but facts are pretty different. All polymer clays are basically PVC containing some kind of plasticizer, a chemical substance which keeps the clay soft until it is baked. Now you should keep in mind that "all polymers, in a perfectly pure state, at room temperature, are completely non-toxic, since they are nearly inert and insoluble. However, all commercial polymers require a variety of additives." (from here) and thanks to those additives the fumes of baked clay are highly noxious. For what I know there are no producers specifying what kind of plasticizers they use. And about polymer clay (pvc) health and safety I strongly suggest you to take a look here.

We really need Dan to chime in on this one.

my two cents

I've been working with Sculpey pretty extensively (2-3 hours a day on average) for about 6 months now and haven't had any negative effects yet, although I have no doubt there are people out there who can have an allergic reaction. The general consensus among my research, which includes several conversations with industrial chemist friends of mine, is that the biggest chance of something serious happening, i.e. toxic fumes, would occur should the sculpey be burnt by too high of a baking tmperature. My general practice is to use temps no higher than 275 and extend the baking time if necessary. In no way do I make any claims that this is the ideal answer, but the chemists I know are pretty darn good at their job and I trust their opinions enough to put my mind at ease. I live in California and according to the government every building or restaurant I walk into is full of chemicals that cause cancer, so I'll continue living on the edge by going out to eat and playing with clay!

one more cent

follow up info to my earlier post

A DUKE study revealed that you would need to overheat and destroy the clay product in the oven-heating process to release hydrogen gas, and <0.1% of the phthalate esters would be released with no breakdown of the polyvinyl chloride.

Woodhall Stopford, M.D., principal toxicologist of the ACMI Certification Program, stated that “Phthalate esters found in these polymer clays offer little or no acute toxicity concerns and are not a chronic hazard concern even assuming a large (24 mg) daily ingestion of these clays. Dr. Stopford’s risk assessment, as well as an executive summary, are available on the DUKE website at http://duketox.mc.duke.edu. Simply click on “Recent Toxicological Issues” on the home page and then polymerclays1.doc for the risk assessment or polymerclaysummary.doc for the executive summary. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has extensively tested samples of polymer clay for safety concerns. They found that the polymer clay tested did not contain any volatile organic compounds and that no acid gases were released if the clay was baked to 163o C (325o F). They found that hydrogen gas was released only if the clay was heated to the point of turning black, 180o C (356o F).

scource: http://www.acminet.org/ACMI_Response_Polymer.htm

I'm just going to back up here a bit, and hopefully answer Titan To's original concern/ question

Reading this thread, baking sculpey should be ok.
If your family have concerns about sharing your hobby where food is cooked, the main alternatives are
1- invest in a small toaster type oven, only to be used for baking of sculpey
2- boil your sculpey figure, again in a dedicated pot
3- switch to two part air dry putty

For the sake of finishing a figure and keeping peace in the home, those would seem to be the simplest, quickest compromises.

If I was sharing the house with a meaningful other, and she had concerns about me baking sculpey in the oven, one of the first two options is what I would do.
A small investment, that would allow enjoyment of a hobby and maintain the peace.

And a lot quicker than trying to educate some one on chemistry who may not be that familiar with it to begin with

Titan To, I hope this helps you get your figures done, and keep the peace.

Let us know how it goes

Cheers

Thanks for everyone here, all of you gives me valuable suggestion.
As Jamie's suggestion, i decide not to educate my family anything about chemistry, thus i decide to buy a small toast oven...

Wish this can make my family happy.

The problem with this kind of thing is that irrespective of how safe something is supposed to be - backed up by the ACMI, the information on an MSDS etc. - some people can still experience problems*.

The second important thing is that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence - one person's experience of no ill effects doesn't mean a thing when it comes to other people.

I worded my first response carefully, not as my opinion, because many people in the polymer clay community don't agree that it is perfectly safe to harden polymer clays in the same oven one cooks in because people have reported ill effects from doing just that. Obviously everyone is different when it comes to this kind of thing, just like the heavy smoker who dies in his sleep in his 80s compared to someone who gets lung cancer in their 30s from secondhand smoke.

*Let's go away from polymer clays and take MagicSculp as a different example. Their site is very clear that it's a non-toxic product and can be mixed without gloves (with advice to wash hands immediately after using soap and warm water). Yet we know just from the relatively small sample group represented by the membership here that some users have become ill from handling it, to the extent that a few cannot use it at all any more.

Einion

super sculpey risk

I agree with just about everything Einion has said on this post. I would use a dedicated 100 watt bulb or toaster oven or something like that.

Really words like 'non-toxic' or 'harmless' when you are talking about chemical toxicity are nearly meaningless. I wish manufacturers would stop using them, but....

What is more important is the degree of your exposure or the dose of the chemical you are getting daily and the protective measures you are taking. Also how your personal immune system is coping with the chemical doses. Some of us are very sensitive to 2 part epoxies. Some could be sensitive to SS. I don't know of anybody who is, but it's possible.
All the best,
Dan