Hello everyone! This project may seem like an incredibly simple one, but for me personally, it involved quite a bit of mystery and drama. That’s right… my fingers were stolen!!

Why someone would want my plaster fingers is hard to say. But what I know for sure is that when I went to de-mold my project, I found my empty cup sitting on the Engi 210 table, the crime scene left nearly spotless, as if my fingers were never there. The case of the missing pointer fingers is a fascinating one that my detective team is currently working on, but I had something more pressing to worry about: making new fingers for my Engi 210 class!

So, I quickly got to work. Once I was familiar with this process, it was an incredibly easy one. I mixed together 40 grams of alginate with 160 grams of water and mixed for 3 minutes, holding my finger in to create the mold for 5 minutes, mixing the 2:1 plaster and water (20 grams and 10 grams, respectively) and pouring it in, waiting for 25 minutes before taking it out and spray painting them blue (to match the blue couch in my apartment; gotta keep some consistency in the decor). This was a very simple and successful endeavor.

Cost Calculation

I was able to find a bag of 376 grams of alginate for $7, so my 40 grams would cost (7/376)*40 = $0.75. The plaster sells at 4 lbs (1814.37 grams) for $8 from Home Depot, so my 20 grams would cost (8/1814.37)*20 = $0.09. So, total materials cost was $0.84, making this an incredibly cheap project! I’m glad something more valuable wasn’t stolen from me :).