Most of you know that when we started having trouble with squishy Premo earlier this year I was one of the MANY who made a ton of noise and got cranky with Polyform. Well, yesterday I received a package in the mail containing newly re-formulated Premo so I could test it, which I did. I'll tell you right away that I DON'T KNOW WHEN THIS STARTS SHIPPING OR WHEN IT WILL BE AVAILABLE and I feel a bit like I'm teasing you, but it's important that you know that the company was listening and worked hard to make us happy. I'm very pleased to report what I found in my testing:
White - I rolled balls between my hands and did NOT end up with a ton of clay stuck to my hands. In fact there was no residue on my hands, and it was a moderately warm day here on the west coast. Huge improvement. I placed a sheet on my working tile and was able to pick it up without stretching, tearing - so it sticks enough to work on it but not so much that it's risky to move it. Again, huge improvement. It is no longer a finger-print magnet. Yes, there were some but they weren't so pronounced, easily smoothed away by gently rubbing. I made a small black and white jelly roll cane and was able to slice it with minimal drag on the blade and very little distortion even with a warm cane. There was no bleeding of black into white during the slicing - both colors stayed put. After the cane rested, the slicing was even better and did not really require refigeration in order to get thin slices with virtually no distortion. I was able to kaleidoscope the jelly roll and shave off paper-thin slices a la mokume gane-type shaving, with no distortion and very little drag on the blade, again with freshly worked clay that had not had any resting time. It baked up nice and white. It required minimal conditioning to be workable and went through the pasta machine without sticking and dragging through the rollers. VERY GOOD.
I generally found the same with the ecru, black and turqouise. I didn't cane with them, but I did check for blade drag, put it through the pasta machine, picked it up from the tile to check for stretching and distortion, checked for fingerprints. All are VERY GOOD. I also made little balls and rolled them between the palms of my hands to see how they behaved when hot. They stretch nicely and smoothly, but they do eventually break which is a good thing in my mind because it means it's not too goopy when warm; and in this state there was still minimum drag on the blade. VERY GOOD.
GOLD and SILVER - These were a surprise. When I did the "pinch test" on the package I thought they still felt a little soft but they were wonderful to work with. Easy to condition with no cracking around the edges, folded a sheet with no cracking at the fold. It seemed as though the mica content might actually be a bit higher than before. I did some chatoyant testing and it was beautiful in both colors and I was able to shave paper thin slices with virtually NO drag on the blade. I loved them both.
TRANSLUCENT - Yummy!!!!!! Conditioned without cracking. Nice and soft and not sticky. I was able to stretch it paper-thin and it really "moved" well. I was moving fast and did tear it, but if I were going slower it would be able to get extremely thin without tearing. It just stretches beautifully. I would put it equal to or better than Kato for it's stretchability and thin-ability. My testing partner LOVED it too - she uses it for fingernails in her sculpted figures and found that after baking it was still flexible enough to cut and shape the nails without cracking or shattering. I did a little sample with turquoise to see how it would look swirled and it's got decent depth even before I'm done sanding and buffing. I did a rough-buff on my jeans and it's got a nice sheen without sanding at all. In our samples, there was NO plaquing at all. It went through the pasta machine very nicely without dragging on the rollers too much.
PEARL - Pretty much the same story as the gold and silver.
They also sent me some red pearl. I never used the old stuff so can't really compare, but there was little or no drag on the blade, it was easy to condition crack-free.
They also sent me some Premo Frost. I haven't opened that one yet but I will. If I find anything contrary to what I've found with the others, I'll let you know. That said, I never worked with the old Frost so won't be able to compare it.
My testing partner is a sculptor of dolls and creatures. She blended some of the new clays and sculpted one of her little dragons during testing. The clay responded well to the sculpting tools, yielding nicely but not too much. She was able to get good details - facial features, wings, toes, fingers, etc. She liked the new non-sticky feel and particularly appreciated the satiny feel and sheen of the clay after putting it through the pasta machine.
I've emailed Polyform with my test results and asked them when this stuff will hit the supply chain so hopefully I will hear back from them today. Note: I could not find any differences on the packaging so this might even be on the store shelves now and we wouldn't know it. I did the "pinch test" on every package and unless you have an old and a new it's going to be very hard to tell until you get the package open and start to work with it.
And that concludes my report.