This week, we were tasked with recreating our fingers using molds and casts. I chose to use my ring fingers, because why not?
First, I had to create the cast. This required mixing alginate with water. The ratio of alginate to water was 4:1, and I decided that it would be best for me to use 24 oz of water and 6 oz of alginate, and I initially stirred them using a whisk. It actually took me quite a few tries to get the right mixture.
*SPOILER ALERT* I failed a lot. Even this picture was taken after I had gotten rid of one of the failed batches.
The first few were because of simple mistakes on my part. I used 6 fluid ounces of the alginate, instead of 6 physical ounces. This cost me the first few batches, but that wasn’t the end of it. The next couple batches were lost because I was a fool. When I was mixing them with together, they solidified essentially after the mix white, and it felt a lot faster than the in class example. At first I thought it was that I wasn’t whisking fast enough, so then I grabbed a drill and the hold drill bit. Unfortunately, that still led to a quick dry and mushier-than-I-remembered feel. I finally decided to at least see if maybe if it was just drying quickly today. As the mixture began to harden, I stuck my hand in just to see what would happened. Turns out, the mixture was just faster than I thought, and the cast began to set. Unfortunately, I am a fool and took my hand out before it had set all the way, ripping it up a little bit.I then made another batch, but it only had one of my ring fingers, since my other was holding the drill. I then made my final cast.
After the cast dried (also quicker than expected), I mixed the Easy Flow parts A and B together (equal parts per volume) and used those to make the mold. While the mold was hardening, I put some screws into the mold and held them in place until the mold was solid.
The molds holding the first screws.
The first failures (notice how I used to much molding material and accidentally made an extra screw-less finger)
For reasonings span from ugliness to moderate perfectionism, I ended up making about 7 fingers. These also dried really quickly, but that was more or less expected.
All the failures
One thing that surprised me however was the resilience of the cast. I expected it to only be able to make 2 molds, max, but it did so much better than I had anticipated, even able to pull a triple header. I remember how scared I was taking out he first fingers, afraid of the inevitable collapse, and at the end I would immediately pour the Easy Flow if there was a big imperfection in the finger.
Once I had the two fingers I would use, sanded them down to clean up the edges.
My precious successes
