Hello! I’ve just made some hooks for my walls…using my fingers. Here’s how it went.

First, to create the mold, I mixed alginate and water in a 4.5:1 ratio by weight of water to alginate. In my case, I used 6.75 oz. of water and 1.5 oz. of alginate, for a total of 8.25 oz. of mixture. I poured them into a clear silicone cup and thoroughly stirred the resulting mixture using a drill with a mixing bit for about 4 minutes. After that, I put my index and middle fingers in the mold and waited for it to solidify for about 10 minutes. Once it solidified, I pulled my fingers out, and the mold was finished!

The alginate mold for the casted fingers.

At this point, I began preparing the rockite mixture. I combined rockite and water in a 1:3.5 ratio of water to rockite. In my case, I made a mixture of 20 g. water and 70 g. rockite in a separate clear silicone cup.

After adding the rockite and water, I thoroughly stirred the mixture using a drill with a mixing bit.

After the mixture was uniform, I poured the rockite mixture into the mold and let it dry overnight. I used a 3D-printed jig (shown in the next photo) to suspend screws in the rockite mixture as it dried, allowing the rockite to harden around the screws.

The casted fingers turned out actually decent, and I’m happy with the result. However, there was still some extra rockite, especially on the tips and ends of the fingers, that I had to file and sand off a bit.

The casted fingers on the 3D-printed jig.

The post-processing setup for removing extra rockite off the casted fingers.

The post-processing workspace, cleaned up after sanding/filing off the rockite.

The finger hooks after sanding and filing.

After doing that, I spray-painted the finger hooks with two layers of copper spray paint and then applied two layers of clear coat spray paint (for protection) on them.

The spray paint setup for the casted fingers. I used the metallic copper spray paint first, and then applied the clear coat paint.

The casted fingers after applying two coats of copper spray paint.

The casted fingers after applying the clear coat paint and waiting for it to dry.

I was done after waiting overnight to dry and checking in on them afterwards…or at least I thought. When I picked up the fingers, some of the cardboard from the cardboard box I had placed under the fingers to protect the table underneath from paint stains stuck to the spray paint on the fingers, and ripped off the box, meaning I had to sand down the cardboard residue stuck to my finger hooks. Once that was finished, I applied one layer of copper spray paint and then a layer of clear coat. I used the 3D-printed finger jig and some masking tape to hold the fingers upright while the paint dried.

Once the paint dried, I removed the fingers from the jig, and then they were done! I’m pretty happy with how they turned out, especially with the shiny appearance of the copper spray paint combined with the clear coat spray paint.

The finger hooks are another addition to the EDES 210 project carriage train…or whatever I decide to call it. See you in the next addition to the train!

The finished fingers in their train carriage.

• 1.5 ounces of alginate (source: here for 1 bag) = $0.79 per oz. x 1.5 oz. = $1.19
• 70 grams of rockite (source: here for 1 bucket) = ($25.10 / 4.536 kg.) x (1 kg. / 1000 g.) x 70 g. = $0.39
• 2 Phillips head screws (source: here) = ($6.87 / 50 screws) x 2 screws = $0.27
• 1 can of copper metallic spray paint (source: here, couldn’t find a better one) = $6.48
• 1 can of clear coat spray paint (source: here) = $6.78

• 3 clear silicone beakers (source: here) = $1.99 per beaker x 3 beakers = $5.97

• Considering that $7.25 per hour is the minimum wage in Texas and that I spent about 3 hours making the mold and rockite mixtures, preparing the casted fingers, and post-processing them: $7.25 per hour x 3 hours = $21.75

• $1.19 + $0.39 + $0.27 + $6.48 + $6.78 + $5.97 + $21.75 = $42.83

Not bad considering that this project took relatively few steps to complete…I’ll have to consider exploring more casting in the future…