This week’s assignment was definitely an interesting one. Something about random fingers laying all around the OEDK is… a sight…

Gathering materials for this assignment was easy because all of the items needed were still in their large bin on our ENGI 210 OEDK table when we started. We took everything outside because we knew we couldn’t be trusted inside with so much room for a mess. Thankfully.

Our first attempt at making our molds came out extremely clumpy and thick because I took the instructions way too literally and used a 1:1 ratio of water and alginate instead of reading the instructions provided on the alginate itself. We scrapped that batch, and started again and were able to get a good consistency with the alginates instructions!

The first round of plaster was also a bit off and seemed way too watery – but some of us used it anyways. The rest of us made a thicker (WAY THICKER) plaster mixture and used it instead. This second mixture almost seemed too thick, and we weren’t sure if banging the filled molds on the table to get air bubbles out was actually working to help completely fill the cavity of our molds… but it was late and we were all getting hangry so we decided to just tape our screws in and say a prayer that it worked on the way to get food. I don’t have many pictures documenting this process because I was indeed extremely messy and not willing to sacrifice my phone, sorry and not sorry.

After *unsuccessfully* scouring Houston at 10pm for taco trucks just to get there and realize they only take cash… Velvet Taco put us in a better mood and we revisited our molds to see if they had hardened and if they were viable. To our great surprise, they were actually wonderful. Both the super runny and super thick batches of plaster… yay!

I let my fingers sit outside of the mold to fully dry so I had a good surface for post processing/ finishing. I noticed there was a good bit of excess plaster around the “base” of the finger surrounding the screw, and I did not like the look of it so I slowly chipped away at it until I was happy with it.

 –>

Then, I decided to spray paint my pieces. I chose yellow because it is my favorite color, and because if I ever actually hung these in my room they would match! I was shocked at how quickly the spray paint soaked into the fingers, and was able to do two coats pretty quickly.

Then, I had the idea of painting the nails on my fingers which ended up 1. looking like McDonalds and 2. making me and my partner MORE uncomfortable somehow. To do this, I created a little pool of red paint and brushed it on using a sponge because I could not find a small paint brush in the OEDK and pipe cleaners would have left wild streaks due to the spray paints thin consistency.

Lastly, I wanted my fingers to be shiny instead of a flat matte texture, so I added a clear coat over top.

Overall I was uncomfy yet happy with my results. I have decided to give them away as gag gifts for Christmas. Haven’t chosen a victim yet.

My cost breakdown is below!

Cost Analysis for Plaster Fingers
Material	Cost	Amount	Quantity Needed	Total Cost
Alginate	$20.00	500g	250g	$10
Plaster	$12	2 lbs	.5 lb	$3
Facilities	$250	31 Days	8 hrs	$2.69
Protoyping Engineer	$38	1 hr	.5 hr	$19
Molding/ Casting Tech (Me)	$0	1	2 hrs	$0
Quality Control	$41	1 hr	.5 hr*	$21
			Total	$55.19

*assumption that tools used for mixing as well as water are included in facility costs

*also assumed I did the work bc it was my own fingers