Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Removing Polymer Clay Grunge from the Floor

Yesterday I had a discussion of a Zen approach to decluttering an art studio. Today we move to the less ethereal topic of Grunge.

I have always longed for a black and white checkerboard tile floor in my workspace. As they say, be careful what you wish "floor". As a polymer clay artist with what my friends affectionately call an "organic" approach, it didn't take long for my crisp black and white floor to be a smeared with a steadily deepening mud toned coat of polymer crustiness accented by a dusting of multicoloured snippets of wool and silk. After trying to remove the clay with WD-40, mineral oil and even peanut butter with no success, I kept the problem under some control with occasional scraping sessions with a garden hoe.
Yesterday, as the studio became cleared with my re-design project, I was convinced that the only solution would be to remove all of the tiles and paint the floor with a Jackson Pollock type faux finish to camouflage the clay crust. I started rummaging in the paint supply box for a tool to pry up a tile and found a can of "Goof Off Graffiti Remover" instead. I had never tried this product so, did a test cleaning on a white tile. I sprayed, gave a quick scrape of the clay with an old tissue blade, then wiped with a paper towel- it worked!



It smells nasty, the room needs to be vented and I think I'll need a few cans to do the whole job but I won't need to replace the floor!
The before and the after views!

1 comment:

  1. What a lot of trial and error, but amazing results. Glad it saved you floor! Sure love reading about your latest adventures, G! I'd love to see this on TV!! Better than 'home improvements'....

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