I started this homework by making a mold of two of my fingers using alginate and water. I measured out water and alginate at a 1:1 ratio by volume and mixed it thoroughly before I put my fingers in to create the mold. After waiting for the mold to dry, I removed my fingers so I could mix and pour in the plaster.
I measured the plaster of pairs and water at a 1:1 ratio before mixing it together and pouring it into the mold of my fingers. After the plaster was cured, I destroyed the alginate mold to remove the two fingers. Once the fingers were out, I noticed that there was very little detail in the fingers and they were really rough so I knew something went wrong.
Looking back at the mold, I noticed it was not smooth which I concluded caused the issue with the final casting of my fingers. Because I was not happy with how it turned out, I repeated all the same steps making sure to be very accurate with with both the alginate and the plaster. I also made sure to mix everything as fast as I could so it did not start to harden too quickly.
The second time was a lot better so I decided to start the post-processing. I used three coats of blue spray paint and then two coats of clear coat.
Unfortunately, after all the post-processing was done, the screws were no longer securely in the foam I used to hold up the fingers when I was painting them. When I picked up the piece to move inside, the two fingers fell off and broke so I had to start over for a third time. I chose to leave, take a break, and come back the next day to restart the process. I repeated all of the steps to make the mold and cast the fingers and the finger turned out good besides that it is hard to see my fingernails but that is because my fingernails are very short. I liked the color I used before so I repeated the same post-processing steps to get the final product. The
Cost breakdown
Alginate: $38.20 for 4.5 lbs so each mold costs around 1.30 dollars
Plaster of Pairs: $22.98 for 25 lbs so each set of fingers costs around 70 cents
Labor: $20/hr and it took 3 hours so total labor costs 60 dollars.
Total cost for a set of fingers: 62 dollars
The cost if I did it on my first attempt: 22 dollars
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