This week’s assignment was to mold and cast our finger using alginate and plaster to create a coat hook.

For my first attempt, I simply eyeballed the alginate and lukewarm water until it was a consistency that seemed right and I poured it into the cup. Then, I stuck my finger into the water-alginate mixture and waited for the alginate to set. I  pulled my finger out, added 2 parts of plaster to 1 part water in a cup, then poured the plaster into my finger mold. I let it sit overnight and, when I came back the next day to take it out of the mold, it was wet and one of them broke as I was removing it.

I then made another finger mold, but this time I was more precise with my measurements. I mixed 4 parts lukewarm water and 1 part alginate by weight (70g of alginate and 280g of water to be exact). Again, I stuck my finger into the mold and waited for it to set. I mixed the 2 parts plaster and 1 part water mixture, and poured it into my mold. I repeated this process to create a second mold. I was planning on removing it from the alginate after an hour because I didn’t want to alginate to make my plaster fingers soggy, but the plaster still wasn’t dry by the time class was over, so I let it sit overnight. I came back the next day to remove my finger castings and they came out in one piece. They were slightly damp, so I set them out to “dry” for a day.

I returned to check on my fingers, and it seemed as if they weren’t as damp as when I removed them from the mold, so I spray painted a clear coating on them as an added touch.

I used about 70g x 4 of alginate, and at about $0.03 per gram, that totals to about $9.25. I used 4 plastic cups, each which cost about $0.07, which totals to $0.28. 4 lbs of plaster costs about $17.16, and I used about 0.2 lbs, which totals to $0.86 for the plaster. This makes my grand total $10.39!

I can proudly say I have two new coat hooks!