Pasta Machine

You really do want a pasta machine. You can make lots of lovely things without one, but it is still a basic piece of kit for conditioning clay and making sheets for all sorts of projects.

Where do I get one?

 

First, if you find a pasta machine of any variety at the back of the cupboard, use that. Be aware that you are unlikely to want to use it for pasta ever again (if only because you will be too busy playing with clay to want to fiddle about making pasta…but also because we are told not to use anything that’s been used for polymer clay for food afterwards)

 

If you need to buy one, don’t go straight to the local department store and have heart palpitations at the £90 machines. Many, many pasta machines have been sold… but very few of us make much pasta at home, so there are hundreds of thousands gathering dust at the back of cupboards.

 

Check out Ebay and pay £15-25 at most. (If you can avoid paying postage for the ravioli and spaghetti / fettucini attachments most of them come with, do – they don’t work with polymer).

 

Which one should I get? If you’re just having a go, use whatever comes to hand. If you plan to do a lot of claying, most polymer people seem to recommend the Marcato Atlas 150. I've got a 150, a 180 (a slightly wider version of the 150 which some people think is a cheap and nasty version of the original, though I like mine), and my original Imperia.

 

The only difference is that the Atlas is (slightly) simpler to take apart for cleaning and fixing, as there are fewer screws and connections inside to realign. Otherwise they are much the same in use.