For this assignment, I went with the Beginner Level Assignment. The first finger I tried to mold was my right index finger. Making the cast was easy as I marked the level in which I should add alginate and water too on my cup so that the ratio was 1:1. After mixing with my popsicle stick until the alginate would settle with a smooth surface I inserted my finger and waiting a couple minutes until the top-level felt firm and spongy then taped the screw over the entrance to the mold. To make my plaster I added plaster to a cup of water until the plaster floated without sinking and poured it into the mold. After the first pour, I swirled the cup around and tapped it onto the table to get rid of any air pockets which worked well because my first cast came out perfectly. However, I did drop it before taking a photo of it, so you can see a big crack near the base of the model 🙁

I followed the same steps for my next cast which I decided to use two fingers, my index and middle finger, just to spice things up a bit.

It would’ve been a perfect mold but I taped my screw a bit too near the side of the cast causing it to slip out easily when removing the alginate mold indicated in the figure below. Thus, I had to try again, but we had no more plaster so I had to use the cement mix which is harder to get the correct water to cement ratio for. After some direction from a student who successfully used it before I poured it into my new two-finger mold. It was harder to pour since it was way more vicious than the regular plaster. This also made it harder to avoid air pockets because it wasn’t as liquidy as the plaster. The mold came out with a couple air pockets and it was still kind of wet, but it was a good learning experience.

Therefore I had to try again, but this time I went back to the index finger only cast and mold. Learning from the past experience, I was able to get a good water to cement ratio so that it wasn’t wet and cold when it came out. I made sure to swirl the cup around to avoid any air pockets which worked perfectly.

Overall, this was a very time and material-consuming task. Even though I was able to make the molds correctly on the first try, it still took time to measure the material, mix properly, and stick your finger(s) in and wait for the mold to settle. Then, the time it takes to make the plaster, pour it in the mold, and then wait for the cast to dry (which shouldn’t take too long, but I let them dry overnight to ensure they dried up). Not to mention, if you mess up you have to do this process all over again. In terms of cost, that is related to material consumption which I used a lot of. For each mold, I used around 110 g of alginate and 60 g of cement mixer and plaster for one finger molds, and around 95 g of cement mixer/plaster for two-finger molds. I also used up 4 screws, 4 popsicle sticks, and 5 plastic cups (Reused 1 cup for the molds and 4 cups for each batch of plaster/cement mix).

Total Cost Analysis (Cost for Alginate and Plaster from ENGI 210 Book)

• Labor Cost: (10 minutes to prepare and mix the alginate + 8 minutes of alginate setting around my finger + 5 minutes to prepare and mix the plaster/cement mix + 2 hours to dry) * 4 = 9 hours and 32 minutes
• Material Cost: (110 g of alginate * 35$/1360.78g alginate) *4+(60 g cement * 6.98$/4535.924g cement + 95 g cement * 6.98$/4535.924g cement) + (60 g plaster * 17$/11339.8g plaster+ 95 g plaster* 17$/11339.8g plaster) + (4 popsicle sticks * 0.07$/#1 Pc) + (4 screws * 0.06$/#1 Pc) + (5 plastic cups * 0.05$/#1 Pc) = $12.56