However, about a month ago it occurred to me that I might be able to create a millefiori cane with a locomotive design in it and create custom track markers that were disks similar to the original ones, but which had a locomotive design embedded in them. This is how I did it.
Supplies
* aluminum pan(s) (the disposable kind, hopefully with a flat bottom)
* polymer clay (A two ounce block of clay was enough for one set of counters, but it leaves little room for error. I had my best results with FIMO Classic. Sculpey III and FIMO Soft were a little too soft to work well with cane work.)
Tools
* utility scissors
* needle nose pliers
* tweezers
* pasta machine (or other clay conditioner)
* tissue blade (or other thin, sharp knife)
* oven/toaster oven
Process
The first step is to make your own cookie cutter. I found a couple good tutorials on making cookie cutters that were informative. The gist of it is that flat strips of aluminum from the bottom of the pan are bent to create cookie cutters of any reasonable design.
I made some sketches to get an idea of how I wanted to make my cutter. I also tried about five different iterations of homemade cutter, with three that I actually used to make tokens, before I had something I was happy with. The conclusion that I came to is that the most important thing to do is exaggerate the key details, like the cowcatcher and the big rear wheel(s), and ignore most of the other details. My cutters were around 2-3 inches wide. Larger would be easier, but would require a lot more clay to use.
Basically, the cookie cutter is used to create a millefiori cane that I could then shrink down to around half an inch in diameter. Then I froze the cane for about thirty minutes and sliced it into disks with a tissue blade. On my second, I tried creating small circle cutters so I could cut the wheels and wrap them with the main color to offset them from the rest of the design. On my third iteration, I stopped trying to incorporate the wheels in the main cutter and just used the circle cutter to cut out wheels once I had inserted the main design with a flat bottom.
Making a millefiori cane is a process of creating a design on a large scale and then squeezing it down and stretching it out so the design shrinks inside the cane. The process isn't difficult, but it is useful to read some tutorials and practice a bit.
Results
v1.0
I made the yellow set first, for Verkisto. I used FIMO Soft and they came out well.
These blue ones were FIMO Effect (notice the glitter), but I didn't freeze either of these first two sets, but this one didn't hold their form as well. If I had done this set first, I probably would have given up on the idea.
Here are the first sets in play.
Here are the rejects from the blue batch, mostly because they are from the ends of the cane.
v2.0
In my second iteration, I tried adding more details and I also tried offsetting the wheels with color. I don't like how this set turned out. The silver cap or the smokestack was too subtle and the design distorted quite a bit at the edges. I also made the wheels too small. While I think a flared cabin has promise, I didn't like how it ended up.
v3.0
I decided to go with a simpler design and focus more on making the cowcatcher visible and the wheels larger and offset. I'm happiest with these so far. I intend to make sets for the rest of the colors as I have time.
If you found this useful, you might also be interested in my other polymer clay related articles.
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Posted Mon Jun 22, 2009 7:32 am
