Aves Apoxie Clay

[Jo B]

Hello.

Recently, I've purchased some of Aves' Apoxie Clay after having watched Paul Budzik's excellent video about it. I started to play around with it just to get a feel for how it works. It's nice to use, plenty of working time and it sands beautifully. Best part about it is that it doesn't shrink. However, I did have one issue with it. While experimenting with it, I stuck it to a sheet of evergreen styrene and left it to cure overnight. I wanted to see how well it would adhere to the styrene. The answer was 'not very good'. It came off quite easily, even in the areas it was applied thin. Right now I don't have much confidence in using it on a model. 

I figure I must be doing something incorrectly as it seems to work well for Paul.

Does anybody have any experience with it? Am I missing something? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[Schwarz-Brot]

No experience with this exact stuff, but several ways to tackle this.

 

- Epoxy clay usually has several setting phases. Most are very tacky early on, the longer you wait the less tacky they become. So the early moments are good for putting the stuff where it should stay, to be sculpted into form later in the process.

- the sheet was probably not cleaned before, so might have had dust, oils and production agents on it. None of this helps with sticking.

- the sheet is usually quite glossy, meaning it has a very smooth surface. No teeth for the epoxy to grip. A wipe with an abrasive helps quite a lot, as does denting with a knife or anything to provide some irregular surface. I is actually a technique if you need to sculpt very thin surfaces to do so on a thin plastic sheet (sheet protector) that can be peeled away later.

 

HTH,

Jan

[Jo B]

Thanks for the response, Jan.

Yes, I did put the clay on the sheet without any sanding, scuffing or cleaning. I'll give your recommendations a shot and see how it turns out. Thanks!