I bought the new Kato, hoping it would be better, and I have the old, and they perform the same.
I have tons of old from FireMountain, and was planning on returning them, but the new Kato (ordered from Kato) is the same for me.

Are you saying, that when you slice of a thin slice directly from the package, it crumbles without any folding?

And to Joan, you run all types of clay thru the machine, singly? the same thickness?
I only have to do that on Kato.

If I had to do that on all my clays- that would be ALOT of work.
Jp

 Love Beads,

I condition my clay via the pasta machine. I'm not going to go into an explanation of technique. My point was that all clay conditions in the pasta machine, and some are soft enough to just do by hand, but even then you could use a Pasta Machine as well.

For me with the Kato clay, as with all clays, I will slice off a piece. Easier to condition clays I can use a larger piece. Anyway, regardless, the minute I start to do anything with the clay, whether trying to warm it and mix it a little in my hand or via the Pasta machine, it eventually crumbles up completely. The last time I used this clay was a year ago, haven't tried it since. And I had a lot of Kato clay to condition for a class I was taking, and each and every color reacted the same.

If it is still so hard to condition, and since I do not do a lot of caning, for me it isn't worth it, and as much as I just love Donna as a person, I will stick to other clays. My experience was so bad, I was way behind in the class because reconditioning it was just as bad, why would I want to waste my time with it again? I would have considered the new formula, but apparently, according to you, it is just as hard to condition.   

Dressagewoman - Thanks for the structured and documented info on the steps you use with Kato.  I have some old stuff and generally use small amounts at a time, but my experience with the black clay will be greatly aided by following your steps, as that seems to be my most challenging color.

Hi all...

I see that Julie mentioned my method for conditioning Kato (and I agree that her work rocks too....I've been an avid Julie fan since the first time I saw her work!  She knows I love 'er.  Didn't know that we were in competition though :).   Anywaaaay....

Yes, Joan, Kato can be frustrating if don't have a tried and true method for conditioning. But, once you do, your left to reap the benefits it offers....like being super strong, awesome color retention (after baking), great crispness of desing in caning, and super efficient cane reduction.

This method is like "pre-conditioning" the clay.  Here's what you do:  On a solid surface, like a cement floor, place your still wrapped block of clay on a mat or sheet of plastic....place the block of clay on one of it's four 'ends', not the two larger, flatter surfaces.  Smack the end of the block with your hammer/hard mallot, until it's compressed to 1/2 it's original height.  Turn the block to another of the four ends, and repeat the process of smacking the block til it's about 1/2 it's original height.  If your clay wasn't too stiff to being with, you can stop hitting with a mallot at this point.  If it is super hard clay, continue the process of turning and smacking until it's been done on all four sides.  Then, it's at this point that you proceed at your work surface, cutting off 1/4" thick slices and running through the pasta machine.  You can skip the standard step of brayering each slice individually before running through the pasta machine.

I mentioned a hard plastic mallot or a hammer....the mallot I like is one I got from Home Depot that has the hard yellow plastic on one side of the double ended head, and a rubber head on the other side.  I don't like the rubber part because it has too much 'bounce back'. 

I'm happy to help if ever I can...just let me know.  Kato is so worth getting over that 'conditioning hurdle' for!  Hang in and best of luck...

Jana 

 Hi Jana! I think I know you sort of. I was at one of your classes last year at this time at CFCF. Can't make it this year, but hoping for next year. You make some really gorgeous, intricate canes that are just huge to begin with. I remember watching you reduce one of them, it was pretty amazing!

Thanks for your concern  and tips. I may try a few bars of Kato again sometime soon. I have Donna's Millefiori book and I want to make some of her canes well.

Joan

Cool!  I got a flyer on conditioning Kato when I ordered from Prarie Craft very recently and it included a description of the "Jana Whack" method.  For me it isn't very practical because I don't have surface I can do the whacking on convenient to my "studio" (aka "desk").  I did try "leaning on" my small blocks before unwrapping and it did help.  Basically "squashing" seems to be a key.

I'm so glad to know they're sending those instructions out....Tony (Aquino...the chemist who makes Kato) told me they were going to do that...

To get all scientific and technical (which is laugable if you knew me, lol), what's happening in the clay when it's being smacked is called "Increased Brownian Motion"....in a nutshell, the molecules start bouncing off of each other, in essence 'liquifying' the clay.  It is the blunt force action that softens the clay enough to run it through the machine.  If it's manipulated in any way (pasta machine, rolling by hand, etc) without some sort of pre-conditioning, it's too cold and brittle and will crumble (as we all know!). 

Another remedy is that if you already have that pile of crumbled clay in front of you (say you didn't smack the block),  press it firmly into a block, and then hit it with a brayer or hammer...this can even be done at your work surface.  Then, take off thin slices and run those through the machine.  Another alternative is to put it into a food processor dedicated to polymer use only, and then once it's crumbled, continue as I just mentioned (pressing into a block and smacking).  This is what old FIMO Classic users often do to condition their veeeery stiff clay..

Since you don't have a hard floor to work at, you could also heat the block on a (well watched) heating pad (you don't want it to 'cook'....been there, done that :)...keep the temp on low and keep turning the block).  It may take several hours, but once it's warmed through, you should be able to smack the block of clay right at your desk instead of going to the floor (warming it prior to floor smacking also works well).

Anyway...best of luck!!

j 

 HI JANA! sounds like you get a lot of your aggressions out on the clay.

lol...I sure do!  Leaves me feeling calm and relaxed :)

So, we're pretty much talking about brand new packs here, right? Let's say we condition the clay by thwacking it, do this and that with it, and then put the remainder aside for an indeterminate amount of time (could be a day or a couple of weeks or more). Will the clay revert to its packaged (i.e., pre-thwacked) condition and you have to start all over again? Or will the worst be over and you can get it ready to go by running through the pasta machine?

Hey there....

I so understand your question...I wondered that same thing when I first began claying.  After conditioning the block of clay, it will eventually return to that 'un-conditioned' state...maybe not as stiff as it was originally, but over time it stiffens up...Kato especially :).  But, if you'll follow a few steps, you don't have to go back to square one to condition...

What I do is that after I've 'beaten' the clay, cut it into thin slices, and rolled through the machine, I then store the clay in sheets rolled to a medium thickness on the pasta machine.  Then, when it comes time to use the clay, you can double those sheets up and run them through the thickest setting on the machine to recondition.  Be aware that if it's sat for sometime, your sheets may have cracked..if so, brayer them back together before running through the machine.  Or, if it's cracked too much, just 'mush' the clay together, take slices and run through the machine.

Another thing you can do is to add a bit of translucent clay during the conditioning process.  It won't change the color of the clay, but will keep it more maliable so those sheets you've rolled it into after conditioning can be put directly into the pasta machine when you go to use it.

Hope this helps, Linelle!

best,

jana

Cool! Very good info, Jana. I'm on a bit of a clay hiatus right now, think it's just the winter doldrums and an opportunity to catch up on some reading. 

Linelle, I think you could take a hammer to the remains of an open pack, too.  If it's plastic, you might have to be more careful, is all.

 Jana, I am guessing that what I'm doing when I "wad" the clay is fairly similar to what happens when you whack it.  It's just that you let a tool and gravity do a lot of the work so it's way more efficient.  If my "studio" floor wasn't carpeted, I'd have a go! But I'm basically using pressure to squash it A LOT, just in smaller bits. I had the frustrating end of the experience yesterday evening with a few slices of an opened pack of brown (I'm usually working with small bits, fortunately).  I leaned on it first, but when I went to make it into a snake, I had a pile of brown sugar on my desk.  No kidding, it was like a special effect in a horror movie!  I did eventually get it to behave, but it did take a lot of pressing the crumbled bits back together. I guess I can see why people give up on Kato, but I really like the way it handles once it's conditioned.

Jana, have you talked to the manufacturer about it a bunch? I tend to think it's not as simple as increased Brownian motion, though.  If it were, the clay would respond more to heat than to being  compressed, and it doesn't seem to care that much about temperature, at least not body temperature and room temperature.  I suppose whacking it might heat it up more than that, locally.  I wondered if it actually tends to crystallize or else form tiny "cysts" with the plasticizer trapped in little cells or something and the pressure physically breaks those structures. 

I really appreciate this thread! I taught a polymer clay fundamentals class last Spring at the Bead&Button Show, and we used Kato clay. Conditioning the clay was very challenging -- we encountered lots of crumbling (which prompted some understandable grumbling). I'm wondering if this has to do with the formulation being phthalate-free? 

I just received a sample of phthalate-free Cernit from Jacquard, and I'm anxious to test it out. I've sent an e-mail to Polyform to find out whether Premo has been reformulated to eliminate phthalates as well. (Premo has been my favored clay for quite a while.)

I want to use the safest products possible, and at the same time, not frustrate my students with "conditioning issues." The smacky-smacky use of the mallet on Kato clay sounds effective, but I can't say I'm too excited about having to pre-condition this way!

Thanks to all for sharing your experiences.   :)  Jill

Hi Jill...

I can imagine how frustrating your 'crumbling clay' class had to be!

Actually the pthalate free clays are softer than the older versions (this is true in Kato and FIMO, anyway), so that's not the reason for the crumbling.  That trait has been resoved some with the new formulation.  It's just a stiffer clay, formulated to accomodate those wanting it for various reasons.  Premo is a softer clay, which also accommodates specific uses.  All of the clays are different and have their uses...I don't see one as 'bad' or one as 'good'.

I find it's well worth the time and effort to smack (or pre-condition) Kato because of the  many benefits it offers...as I've mentioned, it's the strongest of the clays (after curing)...REALLY strong, it's colors stay true during baking, and it's stiffness makes for crisp, intricate canes. 

I really wish that word would get out, about the most effcient ways to condition Kato. I hate hearing stories like the one you tell (about your class)! Kato just simply can't be conditioned the same as some of the other clays, just as FIMO Classic is most efficiently conditioned in a food processor, or Premo conditions by simply running it through the pasta machine. 

I hope you try it again, Jill!

jana

Hi dressage...

I have to first remind you all that I am not a scientist :).   I'd say that while the _effects_ of what happens when you wad your clay is the same as the _effect_ of what happens when I smack a  block, the actual science taking place is different.  I'm sure some scientist could come along and tell us why when I smack a block of clay it softens, and why your's softens when you apply pressure or squash it.

About the polymer being stored in cysts in the clay and exploding out...that's an interesting idea, but I just don't know.  I haven't talked to Tony about that.  You're right, though, that unconditioned blocks of Kato do not respond to the heat, as a means for making it soft.  But, you have to remember that it's not a soft clay in the first place, so warming it can only do so much.  If it were a soft clay by nature, and it had gotten stiff from sitting over time, then maybe heat would make that clay softer...?  Hmmm.  Dunno :)

All I can say with certainty is that smacking it works, and I'll gladly do that additional step to gain the benefits of using Kato!

j 

Hi Jana,I am a scientist, but an astronomer, not a materials scientist...  and I'm a polymer clay newbie, at that. So it doesn't particularly help here.  It's just that the simplest way to increase Brownian motion is heating, and while the clay must heat a little when you whack it, a lot more of that energy goes into deforming the clay.  So my instinct says it's the deformation that's the key component. Otoh, it probably heats the clay more uniformly, instead of form the outside in. Hmmm.

An interesting thing to do would be to find a way to squeeze it uniformly, which would be more deforming and less heating.  Could maybe rig something up with a large hose clamp, a couple of pieces of plastic and a vise....  Do you know if anyone has ever tried that?  The trick would be to contain it while squeezing so that the edges don't have a chance to spread and crumble.  Wonder if my husband has an appropriate vise floating around?

I'm not a scientist in any shape or form, except in my imagination. I do like to set up experiments and go, hmmmm, now that's interesting, what could it mean? Yooohooo, Jilla!

Regarding the whacking. Does the speed of the force (whatever that's called in science lingo) play a part, i.e., the shockwaves sent out by the hammerhead hitting the defenseless pack of clay?

Or could you put the pack in a vise (got one of those!) and squeeze it mercilessly? 

Linelle:

Or could you put the pack in a vise (got one of those!) and squeeze it mercilessly? 

I think that would be a great test.  My hypothesis is that if you don't squash it so hard the  wrapper breaks, and you turn it and squash it the other two ways, it'll work just like Jana's method.  But Jana's hypothesis is that the hammer blow "excites" the clay somehow, so this would be a really good discriminant between the two ideas.  Of course, to publish in a journal,we'll have squash and hammer a great many packs of clay and hire testers who don't know which method was used to evaluate the conditioning....

I better be careful or you guys will kick me out of here!

Au contraire, DW, we crave the science part of it. Over a year ago, there was a strange blackening phenomenon with gold leaf. Or was it silver leaf? Anyway, we did weird science with it and came to the conclusion that we really didn't know what was happening, but we had a bunch of pictures with labels. It was like Polymer Clay Science Fair!

I would think that a thwacking hammer has a bigger excitement factor than a slowly strangulating vise.