OverView And Plans

This week, I will be casting and mounting replicas of my fingers to make slightly creepy wall hooks. The forms will be made of alginate, which gels quickly and is bio-compatible, making it well suited for casting body parts.

The cast parts will only be plaster-of-paris, which also dries quickly and is cheap, but is far from durable. Other castable materials could be used with the same procedure, however.

If I can find a suitable fine fiber, I would love to be able to reinforce the plaster, but I’m afraid this might diminish the appearance. I might also add paint to the wet plaster, so that the entire finished product takes on a tint. Many of the previous projects of this sort use screws to mount the hooks, but there does not seem to me to be a good way of mounting these, so I will be using bolts as I can mount these to a board with a nut relatively painlessly.

Process:

One part alginate powder and approximately four parts of water are used to make the molds. I used 50g of alginate and 190g of water to make a slightly thicker mold that would set up slightly faster. I then inserted my fingers and waited for ~10 minutes, until the alginate could pull away from my hands.

I then mixed 2 parts water with 1 part plaster (~30g plaster and 60g water), mixed thoroughly, and deposited the soup in the holes my fingers left in the alginate. Small bolts could then be suspended by tape so that the hooks can be mounted.

After they had dried for a few hours, I removed them from the mold, enameled them with spray enamel, and mounted them to a board for easy use.

OVerview and Reflection

I was not able to come up with a good strengthening supplement, though even just paper probably could have helped. I also forgot to add paint to the plaster in the haste of getting it into the mold before it set. This was compounded by the fact that my plaster was extra stiff, (i definitely could have used some more water) and this resulted in some small bubble in the cast.

However, the bolts worked well, and hopefully, these will work t0 hang a cap or light jacket on!

Cost analysis.

Plastic cups and water are ~free.

Alginate: 50$/5lbs — $1.10 for 50g

Plaster: ~$0.10

Labor – 1 hr @ 15$/hr = 15$

 

Total Cost: $16.20