The second project of the semester consisted of molding and casting my fingers so that can they can function as a wall hook. I decided to start with making a mold of both my middle and index fingers of my left hand together. I mixed a 4:1 ratio of water to alginate by mass in a cup as seen below.

After about three to four minutes of stirring, the mixture became quite smooth. I then stuck my middle and index fingers of my left hand into the mixture together to create the mold.

I was planning on taking my fingers out of the mixture after 7-8 minutes, but as I originally attempted to remove my fingers, I noticed that the mixture was not quite solidified. I gave it another 6-7 minutes before slowly removing my fingers from the mold. I then mixed a 2:1 ratio of concrete (the plaster had been all used up) to water by volume.

After stirring for 4-5 minutes, making sure the mixture was homogenized and smooth, I then poured the mixture into the mold of my fingers. Immediately after pouring, I put a screw into the top of the mold, held in place by a piece of masking tape until the cement mixture hardened.

While the first mold was solidifying, I repeated the process again, making another alginate mold of my left index and middle fingers together and then pouring another mixture of cement into the mold. After waiting half an hour for both mixtures to set and harden, I noticed that the cement mixture was still very soft. As it was late in the evening, I decided to come back the next morning to remove my finger from the mold. The next morning I removed both sets of fingers from their respective molds by cutting open the alginate mold.

As you can see in the image above, there is still a lot of the alginate mixture stuck to the fingers, which I think might imply that I need to adjust the length of time I let the the cement mixture solidify. I worked a lot on removing the alginate pieces from my fingers. One problem that occurred was the presence of air bubbles in my mold, leaving small holes behind in my fingers, and even a shortened nail. Another problem that came up was that the screw of one of the sets of fingers poked out through the knuckle of my middle finger. In future iterations I planned on focusing more on how the screw is aligned with the finger when I am placing it in the yet to be dry cement mixture.

As I was unsatisfied with the level of quality of my project, I decided to make more molds. This iteration I chose to make one mold of my left index and middle finger together as well as one mold of just my left index finger, as a lesser amount of cement mixture might cause it to solidify and dry faster. I also decided to straighten my left index and middle fingers so there would be a smaller chance for the presence of air bubbles that would disrupt the mold.

After going through the entire molding and casting process again twice, one for each mold and finger set, I decided that I like the two second iteration molds better than the two first iteration, as my second two sets of fingers had less holes, was more structurally sound, the screws were better placed, and was more easily removed from the alginate. I then removed any extra alginate mold mixture from all of the fingers and then let all four finger molds dry before taking the two second iteration pieces to get post-processed. I used a bronze spray paint on the single finger and a mix of green, blue, yellow, and black spray paint on the other set of fingers. I then used a matte clear spray paint as a final layer for both sets of fingers.

Cost Analysis

• Alginate: 4 x 60g per cup at $35 for 3lbs – $6.17
• Ardex Concrete: 4 x 40g per mixture at $9 for 10lbs – $0.32
• Screws – 4 screws at $0.12 per screw – $0.48
• Spray Paint – 5 colors/cans at $5 a can – $25
• 5 cups, 8 popsicle sticks, a small amount of tape – minimal cost
• Labor – 2 hrs of work at $10 an hour – $20

Total cost of this project is $51.97.