Modeling Clays

[andrew whicker]

Hi,

Have you used modeling clays before? What tools do you have / clays do you like? How do you scale the model?

cheers,

[Richard Coers]

I was a model maker for Caterpillar Industrial Design for 14 years before retiring. We used Chavant NSP soft oil based sulfur-free for hand sculpting. It would take paragraphs to describe the selection of scrapers, chisels, spatulas, etc......Just a tool box full of typical sculpting tools designed for clay work. We used a cheap convection oven to warm the clay for fast application on the buck at the start. Then finally scotchbrite with a spritz of WD40 for the smoothing and final finish. What do you mean by "how do you scale the model"? It's math, full size printouts, and dividers. Just standard sculpting work.

[andrew whicker]

Hi Richard,

Thanks for the response

I was just going to buy a block of clay from Blick and assumed I could just start modeling with it... thanks for sending me down a rabbit hole : ) I'm on the Chavant website now and looking at their industrial design clays. Do all clays require heating before use? I guess they slowly get harder to work with until they are too cool?

As far as scaling, I wasn't sure if there were any trade secrets. I will be getting a cutting mat.

Cheers,

I had this in my shopping cart (firm): https://www.dickblick.com/products/chavant-roma-plastilina-modeling-clay/

[andrew whicker]

and what a neat career, btw.

[andrew whicker]

called Chavant and got myself hooked up with a starter kit and a few cutters.

Exciting stuff!

[Richard Coers]

Two most critical factors, warm clay and a good buck. It's nice to only put on 3/8" or less thickness of clay. You can start with a block of foam, or wood structure under the clay. The warm clay really lets you get the layers bound together. It takes a fair amount of effort to push/smear the clay to build it up. Get too cold and it will kinda layer instead of blending into one thickness. I suppose you could work it with your hands to condition it and warm it, but it takes too long. The oven was turned on as soon as we walked into the shop in the morning. Then get settled and visit a bit, and the clay would be up to temp. It doesn't take a great amount of heat. We worked from long cylinders of clay by the case lot. We sliced it up into around 2" thick slices to reduce preheating time. You can buy proportioning dividers to transfer from a larger drawing. Before a lot of CAD came into our shop, we did a lot of work on scaling on large scale printers. A job could even start with pinning a scaled drawing to an oversized block if needed. Of course the worst is duplicating the second side of a sculpture if you need symmetry. Some automotive work used to be done on half models. Models that were split down the centerline. Of course now they still do clay work, but they use hard clays and use a 5 axis CNC to carve the clay. It was a dream job. I started at Caterpillar in 1972. As soon as I heard about a model shop, I applied for the modelmaker job. Interviewed and they told me I was too young, they liked older guys with a broad work experiences. I quit Caterpillar 15 years latter to start a woodworking business. Things happened in life, and I went back to Cat in 1998. I got the modelmaker job in 2000, 27 years after I interviewed the first time. I just wasn't a corporate kind of guy though, and retired in 2014. I like to joke I can only take corporate work, 15 years at a time. Local newspaper did a story on me, https://www.pjstar.com/article/20130225/NEWS/302259794