Best Flexible Molds has a new YouTube Channel!

Check out the videos making and molding oval faux Turquoise (shown right) on our new Best Flexible Mold's YouTube Channel.

I did not know it, but if you put up your multiple videos, a series on one theme in order, eg. video 1, video 2, video 3 etc. the first one uploaded will be at the bottom of the list when viewed! Seems like I learn something new every day. :-)

So, to view molding the oval faux Turquoise cabochon from start to finish, begin with Polymer Clay Faux Turquoise Cabochon-I- Molding and go up from there.

I continue to make videos of cabochons made using the new mold PJ046 Deep Cabochons and upload them.

The video for the square cabochon shown left is a sanding how-to that is three-fold.

1. Identifying the types of sanding paper/sponges that I mainly use.
2. How to wet-sand faux turquoise to remove the black paint used to coat the tiny bits that, when pressed together to make up the turquoise.
3. How to wet-sand to remove a coating of black paint that may be used to fill any voids between the tiny bits that form the faux turquoise.

With faux turquoise the tighter you press the clay into the mold, the tighter the lines will be between the bits of clay. These tight joins do not leave any voids. See the closeup right showing the tight lines with no voids.

However, when the bits of clay are pressed into the mold less firmly it will leave voids as the two rings on this page show. To fill the voids, the cabochon will be painted with heavy body acrylic (tube) black paint after it is baked and cooled. The heavy body acrylic paint will fill the voids between the bits of clay.

Either way, thin or thicker lines, both are lovely and have a beauty all their own.

After baking, cooling and the paint is dry it will need to be sanded from the surface to reveal the wonderful faux turquoise. To make this easy to do at my work table I spritz water into a shallow plastic dish. The 'dish' in the video is from a frozen entree. I cut the sides away leaving a 1/2 to 1 inch edge sticking up. I work in this little 'tray' with small pieces of wet-dry sand paper and water from a spritzer.

The sanding was done in real time so you can tell that it does not take a great deal of time to remove the paint from the outside of the cabochon.

After sanding, you can continue to sand using finer and finer sandpaper and buff to a shine or you can varnish the cabochon. I chose to varnish the cab using Min-Wax Polycrylic varnish. Sometimes I use Future floor wax instead of the varnish. But, which ever I use, after applying two to three coats allowing drying time in between, I'll reheat the bead/cabochon to 215° F for about 15 minutes.