For our second project, we were tasked with molding and casting two of our fingers and make them into wall hooks.

I started by mixing the alginate with water by a 1 to 1 ratio by volume. Unfortunately, the mixture hardened too quickly and became too brittle to insert my fingers to create the mold.

Later I tried again with a 4 to 1 ratio by mass and that worked perfectly; after about 4 minutes of stirring I was able to insert my fingers with no problem. After another 5 minutes, the mixture hardened enough to pull my fingers out.

Once the mold was made, I made a mixture of quick-dry cement with water in a 5 to 1 ratio by volume. It seemed too dry to be poured into the mold so I added water until I felt it was liquid enough.

Then I poured the cement into the molds and inserted screws at the top.

After 24 hours I came back and cut the alginate mold around the fingers to free them. Here is the outcome:

Cost Analysis:
Alginate costs $50 for 5lbs. In total, I used 200g of alginate which comes out to $4.44
Quickrete cement costs $9 for 10lbs. In total, I used 350 grams of cement which comes out to $0.70
I spend about 2 hours total on this project. Assuming $15/hr for labor time, that comes out to $30.
In total, the cost of this project was $35.14.

Conclusion:
One thing that I would improve about my project is the cement mix. I made it a little bit too dense so some of the fine details are blurred. But at the same time, after a whole night of setting, the fingers still felt a little moist and soft when I took them out of the mold. This tells me that if I want the best results, I need to make a thinner mix of cement and I need to let the fingers set for more than one night. Overall I learned the fundamental processes for molding and casting which I know will be very useful to me throughout my education and my career.