How to make Crumbly or Old Hard POLYMER CLAY Soft and Fresh?

Do you have lots of leftover Hard Polymer Clay? Are you looking for ways to turn your crumbly clay to soft pieces that can be used for projects? We are going to share with you our favorite methods to make crumbly or old hard polymer clay soft and fresh so that it can be used for projects.

1) The most common method of softening the clay is to knead it with the heat of your hands.

This can work towards fixing the crumbly clay and making it soft and usable.

2) If you have very old and hard clay, it would be challenging to try and soften it. In this case, you can use a traditional dough roller to flatten and soften the clay.

Depending on the brand and how old the clay is, this could fix the crumbly issue and you can use the clay further.

3) For some brands of polymer clay that are very crumbly, the above methods may not work. So the solution to fix here would be to break the entire clay into small pieces. Then apply mineral oil or oil-based moisturizer in your hands and start kneading the clay using the heat of your hands.

Now you can use this soft clay for your projects further.

4) Conditioning the crumbly clay using the Pasta Roller Machine is a classic method to soften the clay. You need to set the machine to a very thin setting to press the crumbs together.

5) You can mix a bit of soft translucent clay to the dry crumbly clay so that it sticks. You can then run this mixture through the pasta machine again till it becomes soft and workable.

However, this method would not be helpful if you are very particular about the colour as there would be a slight colour change brought by mixing the translucent clay.

 6) Another method to condition crumble clay is by pounding with a hammer. For this, you need to cut the clay pieces and secure it in a plastic bag to keep all the crumbs together.

Then just pound on the clay till it sticks together.

Then you can then run this mixture through the pasta machine again till it becomes soft.

7) Our favorite method is conditioning the crumbly clay by mixing Oytra liquid polymer claywith it and pounding with a hammer. As in the above method, when you place the clay pieces in the plastic bag, add a little bit of liquid clay to the mixture and then pound it with the hammer. The liquid clay speeds the process for the clay to become soft.

Run this through the pasta machine and you are good to go.

However, in this method too there would be a slight change in colour due to mixing the crumbled clay with the liquid clay.

 8) You can also condition crumbly clay by mixing the old crumbly clay with a few drops of Oytra Clay Softener and leaving it in a plastic bag.

Shake the bag vigorously so that the softener spreads to all the clay pieces. This could take a long time from a few hours to a couple of days to condition the clay but the softener takes time to work into the pores of the clay and soften it.

In any of the above methods, you can check if the clay has been made soft and fresh by rolling into a smooth ball. If there are no crumbles and you get a round firm ball, then the old hard polymer clay is turned soft and fresh.

So now you know how to revive the old hard clay. Do check these different ways to make crumbly or old hard polymer clay soft and fresh and let us know which one was useful to you!