This week’s project was a bit different. We were assigned to mold and cast two identical copies of some arrangement of our fingers. We first inserted our fingers into an alginate mixture and waited ~5 minutes for the mold to set.

Once complete, we would remove our fingers and then pour a plaster mixture into the mold to cast our fingers. I created two separate molds, as the alginate tends to fall apart when the plaster sets and is removed.

My main issues in this project were getting the screws to sit inside of the plaster, and my casts breaking when removed from the mold. Initially, my plan was for each copy to include two of my fingers (seen above setting inside the alginate) but I found that one of the fingers kept breaking off at the bend very easily (see below):

Due to this, I changed tactics and decided to just mold and cast my index finger. Once I removed the two casts from the molds, all that was left was to spray paint the fingers and stick them upright into some foam:

COST ESTIMATE:

Alginate: $11 (Hobby Lobby)

Plaster of Paris: $10 (Home Depot)

Cups and containers: ~$10

Labor: 2 hours x $15/hr = $30

TOTAL: $61