Zest-it® Clay Smoothing Fluid for use with wax and oil clay.

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Zest-it® Clay Smoothing Fluid is a non-flammable and non-toxic fluid used for
smoothing wax and oil based sculpting clays.

clay and clay smoothing fluid
Zest-it Clay Smoothing products with clay, brushes and smoothing tools.

zen stones of clay
Clay before smoothing.

claysmoothing group

Zest-it Clay Smoothing Fluid group

Product Safety Information for
Zest-it Clay Smoothing Fluid
PDF

Many Sculpting Clays are a varied mixture of wax, oil and a powdered stone. Sometimes with other additives, it is usually a non-drying clay and not water mixable.
Some clays can be heated, others not, its important to read the instructions. Often just the heat of the hands is enough to allow manipulation of the clay.

We have consulted with various clay artists who were looking for a non-flammable, non-toxic alternative to the 'lighter-fuel' that had been recommended and to the 'turps' they had used, especially as they found these more 'aggressive' than they would like.

So, we had a short intense introduction to the wax/oil clay and how people wanted to work with it.

As always there are 'tools of the trade' and we experimented with many different ones for smoothing the clay.
There are many 'clay' sets around and many different ways of using the tools.
It became apparent that people preferred to use their hands for the finer details. So we produced a more skin friendly fluid for this work, it still has a citrus smell but not as aggressive as most of the other products that are available.

We found that the stiff white filament of the 'Impasto' brushes excellent for smoothing the clay and were easy to wash clean with the Smoothing Fluid.
Once smoothed the area was left to air dry.
It could be worked on the next day, or next week or next year. The 'flexible stiffness' of the brushes handled the smoothing very well, some artists like to roughen the surface then smooth the next day.

The 'shaper' tools are good for use with Oil paint and Cold Wax, they are also good for clay smoothing, easy to use, clean and give a good finish, a medium flex seems to work best.

Working the brush into the clay with Smoothing Fluid will produce a fluid-like clay mixture, this can be used as 'slip' clay for sticking two areas together. Raking the clay also helped to smooth the surface before applying fluid.

The temptation is to thoroughly wet the clay with fluid, but this is counter productive, better to use less fluid to assist the tool, we found it best to use the Smoothing Fluid sparingly.

To control the amount of fluid used on the tools we implemented our 'sponge in a pot', we added 15 ml of Clay Smoothing Fluid to the sponge. The Clay Tool Dampening Sponge works very well to dispense small amounts of fluid for smoothing the clay. Just press the brush, knife or shaper onto the surface of the sponge.

We found different sponges also worked to smooth the clay, these could be wetted by pressing onto the Dampening Sponge.

There are different ways of working and with various tools, everyone will find their own way and with a safer fluid than previously.

Do not throw the un-used liquid or brush washings down the sink, place on damp soil or sand in a tin.

Sizes available - 125 ml; 250 ml; 500 ml; 1 Litre.