So there was an accident in the wood shop this week and…
OH MY GOD MY FINGER GOT CUT OFF!!!
Welp guess I just need to mold another…
Luckily, when I started working on this project, Josh had already been doing some experimentation with the proper water to powder ratios. As a result, I adopted what he had decided was the best ratio, 2 ounces of powder for 8 fluid ounces of water. For the mold mixture components, I used a scale to measure out the 2 ounces of powder by zeroing the scale with the cup on it, then adding powder to the cup. I measured the water using the fancy plastic measuring cups. For each mold I made, I added about a quarter of my powder into my water cup, then mixed with the drill and the hole cutting drill bit. I repeated this process until all of the powder had been thoroughly mixed with the water. Once the components were mixed, I stuck my finger in the mixture and waited for the mixture to turn white. While my finger was submerged, I tried to disturb the mixture in such a way that the air bubbles were removed. In total, I made three molds. I’ll get into the results of the molds in a short bit.
My hand in the solidified mold mixture.
The other part of this process was the use of EasyFlo. When mixing the EasyFlo, I used two of the medicine cups for pouring out the individual parts and would then mix the two parts in a larger plastic cup.
The two parts of EasyFlo in the medicine cups.
Once I mixed the two parts, I quickly stirred them with a wooden popsicle stick and poured the mixture into the mold. I would then hold a wood screw in place in the liquid such that the liquid would reach the bottom of the threads on the screw. I would hold the screw there until the EasyFlo hardened enough that I could let go and the screw wouldn’t move. After the liquid hardened, I would let it sit for about 15-20 minutes before slowly removing the cast.
Onto the stories of my attempts:
My first mold actually worked great and the cast looked really good!
My first cast of my finger.
The only problem was… it only worked once. The mold ripped when I was pulling out the cast in such a way that I had to make a new mold. The old mold wasn’t quite usable anymore. This was a real shame because this mold was really good :(.
The tear in my first mold.
The second mold I made had what I though must have been an air bubble in the fingertip. The underside of the fingertip had a sizable air bubble cavity in it. Now I realize that I wasn’t thinking, and the air bubble was actually in the EasyFlo, not the mold. I would have gotten a much different result if the air bubble had been in the mold. Either way, this mold also got ripped, so I had to make another one anyway. The likely reason the molds kept ripping is that, because I wasn’t using my thumb or index finger, it was hard to get a large enough gap between my fingers for the mold to withstand the removal of the cast.
I then moved on to my third attempt at molding and casting. This attempt turned out pretty much the same as my second attempt. There was once again an air bubble which resulted in an even larger hole in the underside of the end of my finger. The mold was slightly damaged by removing the cast, but not as much as the other two.
The third casting attempt.
After this failed attempt, I decided to fix up the second cast rather than wasting even more materials. I began by filling in the crater in the finger with EasyFlo
Liquid EasyFlo in the finger crater.
Then, I sanded down the edges around the now flat crater such that the filled in area didn’t look out of place with the rest of the finger. I was surprised by the results, but the fixed finger actually looked really good!
The fixed finger.
Once I had both of my fingers, I sanded off the excess casting material (particularly on the end with the screw). With that, I was done!
The back end of the finger post-sanding.
– Nick Lester
