I was reading an ad for a polymer clay how-to book this evening-”the most expensive piece of equipment **** uses is a pasta machine,but you may substitute a rolling pin or a brayer.” Which, while true is somewhat akin to telling a chef- “If you don’t have a 10,000 BTU stove, you may substitute a can of Sterno.” I consider a pasta machine to be an essential piece of equipment in a polymer clay artist’s studio.
As an artist/teacher who owns twelve Atlas Pasta Machines, including two 180’s and two beloved “field stripped” machines one over seventeen years old- and has witnessed many students have machine failures with the Chinese knock-off pasta princess- I recommend that you purchase an Atlas 150. (Yugo or Lamborghini?) Many of my machines experience the ultimate test, nine year old boys at summer camp, who like to put eight in thick pieces of clay through the machine at the thinnest setting while screaming “oh, NO! Bill!)
