Materials Making your own Ladoll/paper clay

Hello, a few months back I found a recipe for paper mache clay. It's very cheap and easy to make and the lady that came up with it says it's extremely strong and can be sanded, drilled and all when dry. I haven't tried it out yet, but I really hope to this summer.

Making Your Paper Mache Clay

Ingredients:

1 roll of toilet paper
3/4 cup of white glue (Elmer’s glue-All)
1 cup of joint compound
1/2 cup white flour
2 tablespoons linseed oil

Tools:

You’ll also need a large bowl, (use one with high sides so you don’t splatter clay on your cupboards), an electric mixer, a measuring cup and a tablespoon measure. To keep t he finished clay from drying out, you’ll need an air-tight container. The recipe makes approximately 1 quart of paper mache clay.

Note about Toilet Paper:

Unfortunately, the people who make toilet paper don’t expect us to turn their product into great works of art, so they see no reason to include the kind of information that would make things a lot easier for us.
I use a brand called “Angel Soft,” in the “regular” 2-ply rolls. I buy it at my local Wal-Mart. Each roll contains approximately 1 1/4 cup of paper, which I measured by wetting the paper, squeezing out the water, and then firmly squishing it into a measuring cup.

Since brands differ so much, the first time you make this recipe you should take a few minutes to find out how much paper is in the first roll. Then adjust the recipe if your brand don’t contain about 1 1/4 cup of paper. Fortunately, this is not a chemistry experiment or rocket science–if your mixture contains a little more paper than mine, or a little less, your sculptures will still be stunning.

Step 1. Fill a high-sided bowl with warm water. Remove the toilet paper from the roll and throw it into the water. Push down on the paper to make sure all of it gets wet.

Step 2. Then pick up the paper and squeeze out as much water as you can. Pour the water out of the bowl and put your paper mass back in.

Step 3. You will want to break the paper into chunks about 1″ across. This will allow your mixer to move around the pieces and break them apart.

Step 4. Add all the ingredients to the bowl and mix, using an electric mixer. The mixer will pull the fibers of the toilet paper apart and turn it into pulp. Continue to mix for at least 3 minutes to make sure all the paper has been mixed in with the other ingredients. If you still see some lumps, use a fork or your fingers (with the mixer turned off!) to break them apart, and then mix some more.


Your paper mache clay is now ready to use. It will look a bit like cookie dough—but don’t eat it!

If you don’t plan to use your clay right away, place it in an airtight container to keep it from drying out. The clay should stay usable for 5 days or more, if you keep it covered. The recipe makes about 1 quart.

At least one manufacturer (Dap brand) of joint compound has changed their formula, and this brand no longer works for paper mache clay. If you find that your clay seems "rubbery" instead of smooth and creamy, you may need to use a different brand of joint compound.

 

The paper mache clay will last a while if kept in an air tight container.

 

I think that joint compound is what builders use to fill in the spaces between sheets of drywall, or sheetrock?

 

Yes that is what it is used for. It's also known as dry wall taping mud haha.

If anyone tries out that recipe, I'd LOVE to know how the clay works. I don't think I'm going to be able to get the ingredients for a couple months.

 

http://www.stolloween.com/

This guys uses a very similar (maybe even the same) recipe for a lot of detail stuff. From personal experience, I can tell you this stuff will be super strong. I use a similar ingredients for pulp papermache so I can sculpt it with my hands, and I actually had to alter the amount of some of my ingredients because it was so strong I could hardly get a saw through it. The white glue (I do half white, half wood glue) gives it strength, and the other ingredients give it a nice body. I don't use oil in mine, but you could probably get away with baby oil instead of the linseed oil if you're sensitive to it, or just don't like the smell. I'd still recommend doing your first layer in paper strips, also, it'll help the paperclay stick to your armature.