Adjusting Aneros Toys With Polymer Clay

Adjusting Aneros toys with polymer clay

Hello fellow Anerosians! Today we will learn how to make non-permanent adjustments to Aneros toys using polymer clay. You may want to do this to lengthen a tab, soften it, add a tail back to a ‘cut’ toy or try some wacky idea that’s floating in your head. Since discomfort problems with the tabs is one, if not THE most common complaint, we’ll focus on this first.  

Warnings

Don’t bake your toy in the oven! Acetal melts at 175 Celsius (335F) and its maximum operating temperature is normally 120 Celsius. Polymer clay is baked to 130C (275F), which means that your toy would be slowly degrading at that temperature, possibly weakening it. Some may argue that the extra 10 degrees won’t do much and that you can push operating temperature a little. Really, I don’t recommend doing this. Baking your add-ons separately also ensure that you can actually slip them on and off easily. You don’t want to have to take a hammer and chisel to your Aneros, right?  

Don’t use polymer clay for parts of the toy that will be inserted, don’t go and try making a complete toy from it. What if it snaps? Polymer clay is not that strong. You don’t want to lose something inside you, and anything you make, since you can’t bake the clay directly on the toy, will be slip-on or light snap-fit and not super sturdy. Don’t endanger yourself!  

Polymer clay, unless glazed, is water resistant but a little porous, so perfectly cleaning (disinfecting) any tabs add-ons you make might not be possible. You get to decide is it’s a big problem for you or not. Making these parts is fun an easy, so if one gets really dirty, just chuck it and make a new one.

Parts will be hot and stay hot for a while when they’re done baking, so handle with care.

What you need

You only need Sculpey brand polymer clay, which will run you around 20$ for a 450g (1 pound) block, enough to make dozens of different little parts. Give some to your friends! Smaller quantities are available, but the 450g block is more advantageous. You also need a household oven. Don’t worry, it’s perfectly safe to bake this clay in the same oven you use to bake your food, it won’t give any smell or fumes when baked at the recommend temperature. The manufacturer is positive on this, and in my experience this is perfectly true.

Setting you oven

Rule of thumb for baking Sculpey is 15 minutes per 6mm (1/4’’) thickness of your part, at 130C. A 12mm thick part (1/2’’) would need to be baked for 30 minutes, and so on. Now you don’t want to go over this temperature or the clay will start to discolor and lose mechanical properties. If you have an electronic readout or probe thermometer, use it to set your oven, else make a test piece, like a small ball or disc about 6mm thick and see what happens after 15 minutes. If there’s discoloration or any smell (it will be a sweet smell), lower the temperature a little and try again. Make sure to preheat the oven until it’s stable before putting your part inside.  Aluminium foil on a cookie tray is perfect for baking polymer clay.

Working with Sculpey

Sculpey is pretty much like soft modeling clay. Take a small amount, shape it with your hands until you get what you want, dip you finger in water to smooth the surface, bake it for 15 minutes per 6mm of thickness, then enjoy! Note that the clay will remain somewhat flexible until it cools, this does not mean it needs to bake longer or at a higher temp, you just have to wait until it’s completely cold, which takes more time for thicker pieces as the center needs to cool also.

Once dry, you can easily make adjustments using some sandpaper, but if you do a good job before baking, this might not even be necessary. You can also add more clay later, and then bake again. So what can you make? You’ll find some inspiration in the attached picture.  

Left is a Jumbo tab for Eupho, this is slotted for in-line movement but won’t twist too much:

On the right, large tab for Progasm, very slight snap fit gives a 360 degrees ball and socket movement with the tab staying stationary on the perineum. This could be done on any of the Trident spherical tabs also. The tab was formed in placed, removed, and closed just a tiny bit so it would snap in place. 

Both attachments took less than 5 minutes to make, the Eupho one was baked for 30 minutes, the Progasm one was baked at the same time but removed after 15 minutes.  The possibilities are endless! I hope this small tutorial was helpful to you. Play safe, don’ burn your fingers, and good luck with your add-ons. I'm not an expert with polymer clay, but there's a ton of info online for anyone who wants to explore this further. Thanks for reading!