texture-press-1
Sandwich made of two acrylic sheets, paper, clay and texture mat. Slide it between two boards and compress for a perfect texture.

I was having a hard time getting uniform textures from my rubber texture mats.  I ran one through the pasta machine, but it got elongated. I used an acrylic roller, but the texture mat moved or the texture was too shallow in places.  I pressed the mat with my fingers and palm, which worked fairly well unless the clay was too hard.

What came to me was the idea of a flower press–the type used for drying flowers.  I asked my husband to make the press in the photo above. I like it a lot.

It’s made of two 3/4″ thick pieces of medium density overlay wood (MDO) with holes drilled in each corner for bolts, washers and wing nuts.

I make a sandwich of the following layers:

  1. A clear acrylic sheet
  2. A piece of paper so the clay doesn’t stick to the acrylic
  3. A sheet of clay
  4. A rubber texture mat treated with water, Armor All or cornstarch as a mold release
  5. A second clear acrylic sheet the same size as the first

 

texture-press-2

I hold this sandwich together with a piece of tape on each end and slide it between the two pieces of wood.  Then I tighten the wing bolts evenly and as tightly as I can by hand.

texture-mat-3

It will still bulge in the center, so I put it in the vice and squeeze the center firmly.  It takes a little practice to get the feel of it. If you compress it too much, the texture mat will go all the way through the clay.

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Separate the layers and voila!  Beautiful, uniform, undistorted texture.