The debate still rages on with regards to the best sulphur free clay on the market today. What we have to realize is that every manufacturer of this type of material will be continually developing their product to prevent any loss of business, afterall, most auto manufacturers use this material to develop their future products. Modelers of all nationalities have their own opinions on what material should be used especially with sulphur free but the unfortunate reality is in most circumstances, the company policy where they work dictates the material to be used.

I’ve been in the position to have used or witnessed the offering in sulphur free clay from three of the main players, Chavant, Eberhard Faber and Kolb. To give you a more detailed description of how these clays face-off against each other, here is a more in depth review. Continue reading Sulphur Free Clay Comparison →

This recent week has seen me working with Y2Klay first hand and to give you a further insight into the use of this clay I can confirm that the first initial report is very close. The clay does adhere to itself very well, with the use of a good keying surface and just for good measures a heat gun to bring the surrounding surface up to speed. The clay does tend to harden very quickly so if you are going to drag in a surface make sure that the amount added is in small quantities to give yourself a chance to put in the surface.

One of the main issues with this clay is after a few days in the oven it will get a crust that will never blend in with the rest of the billet. As in the normal procedure when packing a model, the billet is kneaded like dough to bring it to an even consistency before applying to the buck. What I am finding is the crust breaks up and gives little hard pieces in an otherwise creamy clay.

This is something that needs to be remembered, only have enough clay in the oven that is going to be used by the next day to avoid this crusting of the surface. This is especially important if adding to an already finished surface, otherwise the hard pieces will give a mottled effect to that surface.

The beauty of the current formula is, the oven can be refilled as clay is removed as it takes approximately three hours at 140°F to reach working temperature. Continue reading Y2Klay Revisited →

In a previous article I spoke about the impending move from sulphur based clay to sulphur free clay due to the adverse effect to circuit boards that are now manufactured for todays computers. The seriousness of this effect is such that our company has now transitioned to Y2Klay by Chavant to assure warrantees of computer equipment will remain uneffected.

Now this transition period was put on the fast track, there’s no point in prolonging the inevitable so I am now at a point where I can give you an overview of the product in question.

Y2Klay has been a product that Chavant has been perfecting over the last ten years and the main attributes are:

• Sulphur free, therefore reduces its corrosive ability.
• Less odor, no more smelly clothes through working with the clay.
• Light weight, a potential reduction in weight by 40% leading to less cost in shipping.
• Good working temperature (135°F or 57°C)
• Excellent milling properties

Continue reading Chavant’s Y2Klay →

With the recent interest rising for sulphur free clays I contacted the new office of Kolb America Inc. via email asking about their offerings for a sulphur free clay. Mark Malewitz was kind enough to forward the link of the website, although I was hoping for a little more in depth account of how the product is actually working in the real world. As we all know the brochure can spin the best product in the world but reality has a way of bringing everything into perspective. On paper the TecClay looks to be everything you would want, sulphur free, light weight, good bonding capabilities, easy to mill. OK, let’s look at all the product highlights as stated from the website. Continue reading Kolb, TecClay Sulphur Free →

You may not be aware but as from July 1st 2006 legislation by the European Union has banned several compounds that are currently used in circuit board manufacturing. The main culprit being lead, used in the soldering of circuitry. In Europe, the RoHS, Restriction of Hazardous Substances, will ban the placing on the EU market of any new electrical and electronic equipment containing more than the agreed levels of lead, cadmium and mercury.

What this means in terms to a design studio is, all new computer equipment installed will have less of a tolerance to the sulphur content of the clay accounting for a sooner than later break down of the computer circuit boards due to sulphur contaminant. Although this has not officially been confirmed it is suspect at two studios using sulphur containing clays, they have already reported computer failures shortly after installation. If this is indeed the case then we will find that computer warrantees will be invalid in the studio environment until the modeling clay used is totally sulphur free. The fact that Europe has taken this environmental stand it is only a matter of time before it becomes worldwide. Continue reading Sulfur Free Clay →

The most common question that is asked by someone who is new to the design and modeling field is, what is the best clay to use for my scale model? The answer to this depends on where you are in the world, as you can imagine different cultures have different views on what is best for them. From what I understand there are a few companies that are prevalent for the use in automotive design, Chavant, Faber and Kolb are the ones that I am familiar with. Continue reading What clay is best? →