Polymer Clay Guide – How To Clean Your Pasta Machine

It is very tempting to not clean your pasta machine, but eventually, you cave in and begin the tedious task. It usually occurs when colors start intermixing when that was not your intention. Especially if you use white clay or light clay a lot.

I have three five words for you –  Baby Wipes and Rubbing alcohol Wipes.

both of these little things will be your friend. I also suggest a large makeup brush fur dusting out crumbs.

Start first by using a dry pastry brush of makeup brush to wipe up all the crumbles of clay from under and around your pasta machine.

If you have a keyboard vacuum that can also be helpful.

You will need to take your machine apart – Why is this an issue? it’s not but taking them apart is not so difficult. It’s putting them back together again that can get tricky, confusing and trying to your patience.

Once your machine is apart, clean each section with baby wipes. Once the majority of the residue is off, go in with the alcohol wipes. I do it this way around as baby wipes are far cheaper than the Alcohol wipes. Wipe the blades with a wet wipe to make sure that you have removed all of the residues. You may need a sharp skewer or toothpick to push small pieces out.

Once you think you have finished, flip each piece over and tackle it from another angle, sometimes your view is obscured so rotating and working helps to clean it all out.

Allow to dry then put it back together.

Alternatively invest in 2 machines, one for light clay and one for dark clay. Obviously you will still need to clean each pasta machine but the whole process can be reduced.