My finger cast in class failed! So I decided to cast my whole hand instead… and I’m hoping it still counts because it contains 2 fingers lol

So first I started by making a mold of my hand in alginate. This was tricky and took several tries because I was trying to eyeball it. Bad idea. But eventually I measured a 6:5 ratio of alginate to water by volume (according to the package (Good idea.)) and set it for around 10 minutes and it worked! Then, I mixed plaster at a 1:1 ratio by volume and poured it in the mold.

After about an hour (according to the package), I took it out of the mold. Bad idea.

But then I glued all the fingers back together and let it set overnight. Good idea.

Unfortunately, the gluing left cracks in the fingers and the casting left bubbles in the hand (which according to my friend in dental school, they vortex the plaster mix before adding it to the mold to avoid this).

So, I began the very tedious task of filling with primer. Good idea.

After letting it dry for an hour, I sanded down the bottom so it would stand upright.

Finally, I spray painted it white.

And now I have a cast of my hand! Here is my clean (albeit painted) final workstation:

And here is my cost analysis:

Cost Type	Cost	Price	Source	Quantity	Total
Materials	Alginate	$11.99/bag	hobbylobby.com	0.75 bag	$8.99
	Plaster	$5.59/bucket	joann.com	0.1 bucket	$0.55
	Super Glue	$1.30/tube	target.com	0.05 tube	$0.07
	Sand Paper	$0.52/sheet	homedepot.com	2.5 sheets	$1.30
	Spray Paint	$5.98/can	homedepot.com	0.2 can	$1.20
Labor	Prototyping Engineer	$36.48/hour	ziprecruiter.com	5 hours	$182.40
Design	Engineering and Development	$48.17/hour	ziprecruiter.com	0.25 hours	$12.04

Total: $206.55. The process itself was pretty cheap, but the labor cost was the largest fraction of the cost (from re-doing the mold a couple of times).