How To Fix Moonies And Other Imperfections In Cured Polymer Clay}

Submitted by: Gloria Towle

Moonies in polymer clay are like a course. They are white spots on the clay and they’re shaped as a half moon, a circle, or even a bump. Moonies are just bubbles of air trapped inside the sculpture. These ugly marks can be fixed even though when the clay has been baked or cured.

If you have a moonie or moonies in your polymer clay sculpture, don’t throw away your piece. It might be a good one. I used to throw away all my pieces with moonies until I learned how to fix them. It’s easy and it doesn’t show.

When your cured piece is cold, look closely at the piece that has a moonie. Take a needle or a pointy knife and poke on the moonie. Just on the moonie.

You’ll see how easy is to make a little hole. That’s because it has a pocket of air underneath.

Once you have made a little hole, clean it and make sure there is no debris in there like cured clay. Brush the hole with liquid polymer clay and add a

little piece of clay. Fill the hole and smooth. Make sure the seams are perfect and you don’t see a bump or a crease there.

Bake your piece again, but make sure to cover it all on paper towels. Bake it at the same temperature you always do for at least 30 minutes.

When you’re finished baking, let it cool. When it has cooled, sand and polish all your sculpture. You are ready to paint and your moonie has disappeared.

If you see that the place where you filled in the moonie has a slighter color that the rest of your clay, just add a dab of a darker flesh color on top of the fixed moonie and put it back in the oven to cure when you have finished painting or if you can, put a little bit of red blush, like a skin mark.

Imperfections in cured polymer clay

Properly cured or baked polymer clay is so strong that it can be sanded, drilled, cut or you can add to it by inserting a piece of wire. You can do many things with it. Even fix a sculpture imperfection like crooked eyes a nose too big or too small.

The way to fix an aesthetic imperfection is by cutting the piece off. The easiest body parts to fix are the fingers, ears and the nose, because they stick out. The most difficult are the eyes, but it can be done.

I will explain how to fix crooked eyes. Crooked eyes can be fixed two ways:

Closing them, in which case you just cut a little bit and add clay. This is the easiest way, or changing the open eyes for new ones.

I take a sharp pointy knife and start by poking the clay that I want to remove. Many times the clay will break in small pieces if you do it carefully and you are patient. If this is the case, stop when you have taken off as much as you need to modify your piece.

If the clay is too hard, then you’ll need a dremel. I use one of the cutting disks and make small incisions on top of where I am going to cut and on the bottom. Then I make more small incisions like slices between the two starting points until it starts to come off. After I finished with the dremel I use my knife and take off all the clay that is sticking out until the place I am going to fix is clean and as smooth as possible.

If I am going to replace the eyes with another set, I have to make the necessary adjustments for the eyes to fit in there. If they are flat eyes, you have to flatten the base. If they have a wire or a point in the back, then you will have to use your drill so that you can insert them without any problems.

Once you have prepared the base or hole for your eyes, put them in. Make the necessary adjustments for them to be aligned. When you are satisfied, then add a drop of super glue in the hole or on the base and insert tone of the eyes. Then do the same procedure with the second eye. The super glue will secure them so that you can start adding your clay.

Brush on some liquid polymer clay on the places where you are going to add fresh clay and start building up and sculpting. Once you’re done, you bake the piece at the same temperature of 200 Fahrenheit for the time necessary for it to cure. If it’s one inch you might want to leave it for more than an hour to cure.

Once it’s cured, you need to paint. You might want to start painting the new piece first so that it matches the color.

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