WTH is Plasticene?

Plasticine is also used as synonymous with pliable, flexible etc -

1955 K. WILLIAMS Diary 14 Dec. (1993) 118, I felt a complete lack of reality about Larry - it was indeed a theatrical Richard, with funny walk, crookback, unformed hands, and a plasticine nose. 1958 Spectator 4 July 12/1 He was so pliant, so plasticine,..so insidiously seeing it all the other chap's way. 1976 Times 28 Jan. 1/3 The Russians..would respect us more if we were led by an iron lady rather than a Plasticine man.

(Plasticine was developed by W. Harbutt in Bath in the mid 1890s (cf. quot. 1897 at sense A.); commercial production began in 1900.)

OED

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Bob.

The nifty stuff I used to make claymation films!

herb said:

Was just reading a good book written in UK about Master Class in B/W printing, and they talk about putting "plasticene" on a wire to use as a doging tool.

Being in redneck country, we do not have a clue as to what that is, or what could be a substitute.

Brits of the world, arise to the occasion!

Give us poor colonials the answer!

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What? I thought everybody knew what plasticene was. It's like playdough but not salty; more rubbery. Doesn't dry out, or at least not within the attention span of your average 6 year old anyway.

Am I totally dating myself by remembering this part of the Beatles' Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds ?

"Picture yourself on a train in a station,
With plasticene porters with looking glass ties,
Suddenly someone is there at the turnstyle,
The girl with the kaleidoscope eyes."

Tony Egan said:

I remember doing the same. Rolling it on a flat surface and creating a really sharp pointy end was popular. Also making handlebar moustaches and walking around with them wedged between the top lip and nose. Cutting it into slices with a wooden ruler etc. etc. I seem to recall it coming in packets shaped a bit like crayons in Australia?

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A popular past time at my junior school was surreptitiously sticking huge balls of plasticine onto the school radiators. The clay would melt then harden leaving streaky solidified runs of the stuff all down the rads and pipes. Although this may sound like a terrible anti-social vandalism, we were, in fact, ensuring the employment of several cleaners/ caretakers and painters over the summer to put right the damage - which, in the high unemployment of the thatcherist early 80's, served an important role.

A social conscience at such an early age.

Leon said:

A popular past time at my junior school was surreptitiously sticking huge balls of plasticine onto the school radiators.
<snip>

A social conscience at such an early age.

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Ah yes, used to do the same in the sixties. It is good to see such traditions survive

Off topic stuff moved to a new thread--

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