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If you want to speed up the process of making things with air dry clay, here’s how to dry air dry clay in an oven.
Wait, Isn’t It Called Air Dry Clay?
There is no reason at all that you would need to dry air dry clay in an oven, other than speed. It doesn’t otherwise affect the look or strength of the finished product as far as I can tell.
I had hoped that it might prevent cracking because it would help an object to dry more evenly, but that hasn’t really been my experience.
Here you can see two air dry clay candlesticks made on the same day from the same clay. The one on the top/left was dried in an oven, while the one at the bottom/right was air dried.
The cracks on the oven dried one may be fewer, but I also feel like they are deeper, particularly on the back, where it looks like there’s a crack that goes all the way through.
How to Dry Air Dry Clay in an Oven
You can use your regular oven if you have a lot of pieces to dry at once or you don’t have a toaster oven, but I feel like the toaster oven is ideal for drying air dry clay in the oven because it’s small and easy to get into to move things around.
Start with your finished item on a piece of aluminum foil. You could use a tray, too, if you want, but I just used foil.
The oven should be cold when you put your item in. Set the temperature to 200 degrees F/93 C, or whatever the lowest setting is on your oven (my big oven goes down to 170 F/76 C, for some reason).
I set the time for about 20 minutes. I peeked in after 10 and flipped the item over.
For the flower frog, it was basically done in 20 minutes. I think the candle holder could have gone longer but I still just did 20 minutes.
If you can, allow the item to cool down in the oven as well.
While I don’t think I would routinely dry air dry clay in an oven (and I actually think drying in front of a fan is better for avoiding cracks), it’s a handy thing to know if you’re in a hurry or have a bunch of projects you want to dry all at once.
Have you ever dried air dry clay in an oven? I’d love to hear about your experience!
