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WHAT IS AN AIR BUBBLE?

An air bubble is basically some air that's trapped in between clay, and sometimes they're visible, sometimes they might be embed in it so deep that it doesn't matter until you bake it and you get a crack 😶

Here's an example of an air bubble, and this is quite a serious one hahaa. You can fix air bubbles to a certain extent, and also avoid it as much as you can (which I will talk about a little later).

Air bubble doesn't go away after you bake it, as shown in this gif. The clay just bakes as usual, and it leaves an ugly bump! You can even see small ones in this gif (which is the more common ones)

HOW TO FIX AIR BUBBLES AFTER IT'S BAKED

My pieces are actually usually small and rounded, but if you have a flat piece exactly like this, you can fix it by placing the clay in between two ceramic tiles when the clay is fresh out of the oven, put something heavy on top and wait for it to cool down completely. It should lay flat but there's no guarantee that they will be completely gone! (You can repeat this a couple of times if it's fixable)

Another method which is my preferred one (because I'm lazy and want immediate results 🙃 don't be like me) , will be to use nail polish remover to remove the layer of clay surrounding the bubble.

As you can see here it works pretty well, and even though you still can see the slight bump, it's already much better than before!

Do note that this is quite risky because if the air bubble is too close to the surface, you might remove too much clay and you'll see a hole instead 😱

For example here, it was an air bubble and it was too close to the surface and now you see the hole!!

What I would do here though.....would be to wipe it down even more and completely remove the layer the air bubble was at (since it doesn't seem to be too deep and it'd be doable haha)

Sometimes all these air bubbles that may be hidden might cause cracks to form after baking (it's actually just a speculation and tbh nobody knows for sure - I did so much research and nobody really knows what forms these cracks, and air bubbles seems like a possibility)

Another method to fix this sort of thing would be to use liquid clay mixed with the same colour clay to cover the cracks! (This isn't exactly how a crack looks like, I just wanted to show how it looks when I use this method to fix it 😊)

Here's how it looks like after it's baked, and you can see how it blends so well! Now I will use my nail polish remover to remove the excess clay and it'd look like nothing happened! 😆

For example, my Newt's Suitcase actually had a biggggggg crack here and it was SO unexpected! I used this method to fix it....

And here's how it looks like after it's all baked and cleaned up! Not bad eh!

This method does take more time because of the mixing of the liquid clay itself...but when you're desperate and a perfectionist and you spent so much time on it already....you'd do anything hahahaha.

HOW TO AVOID AIR BUBBLES
(mixing small amounts with hand)

Now as you can see above, sometimes it's just easier and better to avoid air bubbles altogether because of the time that needs to be taken to fix it...

So what I would do is to use my roller to roll the clay out and flatten it. This helps to make the clay softer and easier on the hands when you're mixing too!

I would then tear them up and roll them again, doing this a few times! Make sure you roll from centre and go outwards instead of just doing it from one side to the other.

I would then roll the clay into a ball and soften it this way. This also helps to push all the clay together and I would like to think that the air bubbles would also be squashed!

Do the above steps a few times, and eventually it will be easy to knead and by then you can roll the clay into a snake!

Just keep repeating it and when it's long enough twist them together like this so no air bubbles will be able to get stuck in between! 😊

PASTA MACHINE

Now, I hate pasta machine and to be honest I don't use it often. But I do take it out when I have to mix a huge amount of clay because my hands just can't take and unable to mix a big chunk of clay well!

(You can read this article on why I don't like pasta machine and why I prefer @aiclay's Pocket Roller!)

I wanna go over the pasta machine for a bit first and then show you guys how to avoid air bubbles when you use it!

My crafting spot is in my craft closet, which means I don't have the luxury to have the pasta machine attached to my table at all times (it takes up quite a bit of space since it's quite bulky), and I have to keep the table every time I finish crafting.

So I keep my pasta machine in a plastic bag and only take it out when it's needed! It also helps to keep pasta machine free of dusts so I recommend you to cover it with something when you're not crafting to save yourself some cleaning time 😆

The pasta machine I got is actually from a local art store and it was meant for clay! It's call a Nicole Clay Machine and to be honest.....it isn't very good although it cost me quite a bit of money at that point of time 😶

You can read about how I feel about it when I just got it here. It was so long ago when I just started polymer clay! 😆

Here's how I set it up whenever I need it! Clamp it down, and put the handle in 😊

I NEVER use pasta machine to flatten my clay to be honest because it's so bad at it 😅 I think proper pasta machines are more reliable in that aspect, but not mine. Thank goodness I have Pocket Roller! I use pasta machine SOLELY for mixing, and that's the reason why I ALWAYS ONLY use the thickest setting!

(P.S apologise for the bad lighting here...my craft closet only has optimal light for the area where I'm crafting to take videos, but not the other parts of my closet 🙃)

I also have some translucent clay (yes the one on the left is translucent clay ahaha) and blutack that I keep with my pasta machine at all time!

What I would do is to use the translucent clay and go through the pasta machine a few times so it catches the clay that might have been stuck at the bottom. This makes sure that the clay that I am actually going to roll through wouldn't catch those clay instead! Sometimes I even fold it two times to make it thicker so it would catch more stuff hahaha

Then I will use the blutack to clean the rollers themselves (because translucent clay isn't sticky enough to catch those on the roller which soft clays usually leave)

In the past I would use blutack and do the steps I do with translucent clay, but the blutack keeps getting itself stuck at the bottom so I decided to use clay instead, and translucent clay is a good choice because it's stiff so it doesn't get stuck, yet sticky enough to do what I want it to!

Here's me rolling a white clay out after all that cleaning - no other clay stuck on it whatsoever yaye!

If you are mixing a few different colours for the clay, it's advisable to do the cleaning before you mix another colour 😊

HOW TO AVOID AIR BUBBLES &
FIXING AIR BUBBLES IN RAW CLAY

So here's the part where it seems easy but honestly not that much.

Initially I thought that it's just rolling the clay through the machine, what's there to be careful about??? Noooooooo, the way you put the clay in DOES affect! Air bubbles is really annoying to get rid of once you have too much of it 😭

Here's how I put the clay though the pasta machine, I fold it once before I roll it though again because I need the clay to be squashed together and therefore being mixed completely in the end, right?

Take note of there the edge of the folded part is! It's facing upwards, which means that if there's any air bubbles, it will get stuck at the end because there's no space for the air to escape as it goes down!

To be honest this isn't such a big issue because it's still a pretty flat and even piece, but when I was doing this I could hear so much popping right at the end and that was the air "breaking" the clay to escape haha.

Here's how I would normally do it - folded part facing downwards so the air can escape from the opening!

On the left is the piece I mixed with the folded part facing up, and on the right is the one that was "mixed properly".

To be honest both of them looks pretty okay! But......

There's this HUGE bubble at the end! 😆

To fix this sort of bubbles, you can poke a small hold and let all the air escape, using your fingers to help flattening it. (You don't have to poke the hole too deep...it takes more rubbing to rub the hole away and usually you still want the clay to be flat!)

Here's how it looks like after it's fixed. Notice how there's actually an indent because there really was quite a lot of air!

Good thing is since it's at the edge, you can afford to trim it away and not use that part so there's no harm done.

PASTA MACHINE AND TINY AIR BUBBLES. WHY?

This was the part that baffled me the most.

It's also the most annoying because the tiny air bubbles are usually in the middle and all over and you NEED that surface! Can't really trim it away unlike the one above aye.

Here's how these small bubbles form (I'm speculating, as usual).

Basically what I do is to tear the pieces and then go through the past machine like that directly. I thought it would be alright since it just going to flatten itself, right? NO.

I realised that because of how uneven it is, all the jagged edges lining up with flat pieces basically lets air in and probably locked the air in there when I roll it out 😱

I got these small bubbles ALL the time and this was how I rolled the clay through, now it makes sense why the bubbles are in the middle and why there are so many of them?? 😭

(Sorry about the glare on the clay, somehow I could only recreate this with white clay which is the most I mix with with translucent clay. Will take a proper video if this happens again on other darker clay!)

IF THIS HAPPENS....TO FIX:

What I usually do is to gently pull the clay outwards with both my hands to stretch the clay, and that kinds of flatten the tiny bubbles! I'd use my finger to rub the bubbles away as well, and you can even poke it too.

Then I would tear it apart...

...but remember to roll it into a ball to compress it, then roll it flat with roller....

...and then go through the roller again!

Remember to make sure that you put the folded side down, and FOLD AND ROLL instead of tear and roll!!

Also note that the thinner the setting of the roller is, the easiest it is for air to go in. So if you're like me and you use the pasta machine to mix clay, just use the thickest setting - always!!

AVOIDING AND FIX AIR BUBBLES + PASTA MACHINE