How to Make a Polymer Clay Extruder Cane | Groovy Geometric

Get out your extruder and follow along to make this easy polymer clay extruder cane.

I love making complex canes with multiple components that take hours—and sometimes several days—to build. I really do. But there’s something to be said for the simplicity of a polymer clay extruder cane that’s relatively quick to crank out.

This particular cane was inspired by a retro-esque geometric pattern I saw on Pinterest some time ago. I knew as soon as I saw it I had to try create something similar in polymer clay.

The cane uses just a single polymer clay skinner blend so make sure to make yourself a decent sized blend to begin with. I used 4oz of clay in total which gave me a nice sized cane in the end.

RELATED POST: HOW TO MAKE A POLYMER CLAY SKINNER BLEND

In this tutorial I use pink and yellow for the blend with a strip of white between the two colors which blended to a lovely soft orange in the middle. I’ve used just two colors for the blend before, but I think my favorite one so far was a blend of turquoise, magenta, and yellow. 

Whatever colors your choose, so long as they blend harmoniously, I think you’ll have a winning polymer clay extruder cane!

After making the blend it’s cut into six strips which are passed through the pasta machine to make thin ribbons. The ribbons get rolled into cylinders, reduced to a size to fit your extruder, and the extruded pieces are stacked together to make the cane.

Easy peasy!

So, gather your supplies and let’s get cracking on a new polymer clay extruder cane.

Tools & Materials

• Non-porous work surface (I work on either glazed tile or glass)
• Pasta machine dedicated to polymer clay use (I use an Atlas 180 and will refer to the settings I use on my machine. If you don’t have a pasta machine an acrylic roller and some playing cards will do in a pinch, it’ll just take a little more work.)
• Two or three colors of polymer clay—I used the equivalent of two 2oz blocks of clay for this cane which gave me a good sized cane (color recipes are below)
• Polymer clay extruder
• Sharp polymer clay blade  
• Acrylic rod

Directions for Polymer Clay Extruder Cane

Polymer Clay Skinner Blend

Condition each color you’ll be using to make a polymer clay skinner blend individually. Try to keep the clay in a rectangular shape so you don’t have to do any trimming when you build the blend. Finish by sheeting the clay on a medium setting (no.3 on my Atlas)

Cut the rectangles diagonally into offset triangles and stack them together. If using a third color add it as a strip, double layered, between the two outside triangles.

Fold the blend in half and run it through the pasta machine, fold first, on the thickest setting (no.0). Continue until you’re happy with the blend.

Cut the blend into six equal strips as shown. Make two stacks of two strips and leave the other two as a single layer.

Rolling Up the Blend

Run one of the single layers through the pasta machine, narrow end first, on progressively thinner settings until you reach as thin as your clay can go without tearing. I can go up to setting no.8 if my clay isn’t too warm already.

Starting at either end, roll up the thin ribbon of clay into a cylinder.

Run one of the double stacked strips through the pasta machine, narrow end first, on progressively thinner settings until you’ve reached the same thin setting as you used for the first ribbon of clay.

Starting with the same color as you started with on the cylinder, add this ribbon of clay to the same cylinder, making it fatter.

Repeat the process with the rest of the clay from the skinner blend. This time, begin rolling the cylinder from the opposite end that you began with on the first one.

Reduce the two cylinders until they are the right diameter to fit into the tube of the polymer clay extruder.

Building the Polymer Clay Extruder Cane

Load a cylinder of clay into the extruder and using a square die on the end, extrude the clay. Repeat with the other cylinder.

Cut off the distorted ends of the extruded clay. Cut the good part that’s left into 8 equal lengths for each of the original cylinders, so you end up with 16 pieces in total.

Build the cane by alternating the color patterns. 

Close the gaps between the squares by rolling the sides of the cane with an acrylic rod or brayer. To help get the air pockets out it helps to begin by rolling from the center of the cane to the ends a few times on each side before rolling from end to end.

My cane ended up being over 4” so I cut it in half, flipped an end around, and joined the two pieces together. This way I ended up with larger slices to work with but isn’t a necessary step.

Let your cane rest so the clay can cool down and firm up before slicing. All that color blending and extruding makes it quite soft which means distorted slices if you try use it right away.

Color Recipes

Brand: Fimo Professional

Pink

• 1 part True magenta
• 2 parts White

Yellow

• 1 part True Yellow
• 2 parts White

A Note About Extruders

If you are in the market for a good polymer clay extruder and have the budget for it, I cannot recommend enough the Lucy Clay Czextruder. Yes, it’s a bit pricy, but in my opinion it’s well worth the cost. It’s easy on the hands when hand cranking or you can use a drill for even more ease. I’m not getting any sort of kickback by recommending this product, I just really love mine.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this Polymer Clay Extruder Cane tutorial! Let me know if you try it out.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, I’m happy to hear from you.