in this video we’re gonna show you a
quick and easy way to make a mold and
cast of your own hand it’s fairly
versatile and the position of your hand
and what you do with the casting are
entirely up to you
[Music]
molding and casting is actually
something I’ve done quite a bit of and I
wanted to show you one of the very
easiest ways to do it yourself there are
two main ingredients a mold compound and
a casting compound I got both of these
at a local craft in a fabric store but
there are many options using the same
basic idea our mold material is
something called alginate and our
casting material is plaster with some
other added elements to it here’s the
basic idea we’ll quickly make a box
using foam core and a glue gun we’ll mix
up some alginate molding material and
mold our hand inside once the mold is
cured we’ll whip up a batch of our
plaster and pour it into the mold making
a perfect cast of our hand this box will
have a bottom and four sides to it and
of course no lid because my hand needs
to be able to fit down inside so I’m
going to start making some marks on this
piece of foam core that are just big
enough for my hand in the thumbs up
position to fit inside this piece right
here will be the base so now we need to
measure out the four pieces that will
act as the walls a 1 we have a little
bit of a gap at the bottom so my hand
isn’t pressed down on to it so let’s
lift that up and I probably want to get
molded up to right about here on my
wrist not far beyond the edge of my hand
but a little bit overall it looks like
we want to pour the alginate about 6
inches up and let’s give ourselves an
extra inch of wall just so we’re not
overflowing it we’ve got all five pieces
of our board measured out now let’s cut
them down we’ll probably also need to
trim the two narrower sides as well just
[Music]
all right we now have this beautiful
little white paper box and this should
do a perfect job of holding our alginate
this alginate mold material has a couple
of advantages and disadvantages over
mold materials we’ve used in the past
you’ve probably seen some of our videos
where we used silicone to make molds of
things and silicone is great for a lot
of uses it’s very durable it lasts a
long time you can get several casts out
of one mold but it does have some
drawbacks silicone is fairly expensive
and even the quickest stuff can take up
to 45 minutes to cure alginate cures in
about two to five minutes at most and
while that seems really good it does
have its own drawbacks alginate isn’t
very durable
you’re likely to get one or maybe two
castings out of a single mold it’s also
a very wet material while you’re using
it as a mold so there are some things
you can’t cast in it a lot of types of
resin won’t work well if they’re
surrounded by moisture however it is
perfect if you’re trying to cast
something made of plaster and because it
cures so much faster it’s a lot more
comfortable to try and cast say a hand
in this than it would be in silicone
because otherwise I’d have to put my
hand in the box and just hold it
perfectly still for like 45 minutes
before I pulled it out and then I’d have
a really hard time getting my hand out
of there silicone grips quite a bit
whereas the alginate is a lot more
slippery so I should be able to just
slide my hand right out of mold once
it’s done to get a good sense of how
much alginate mixture we’re going to
need let’s first fill up our box with
sand and then pour that into our Bowl
that’ll show us about the level we’re
expecting to get to I am also adding my
hand into the box to get an accurate
measure of the volume alright I think
that is just about exactly where we want
our alginate to go to that’s covering up
the end of my wrist see if I can pull my
with the particular alginate that I’m
using it has a ratio of 0.8 three cups
of alginate to one cup of water which is
1/2 a cup plus one third of a cup
to one cup of water if you’re using a
different brand of alginate it may have
a different ratio make sure you follow
the instructions that come with your
packaging
all right going for a thumbs up pushing
my hand down into the Elgin it all the
way at the bottom and then back it off
just a little bit so I don’t want it
touching the bottom just close make sure
if you’re molding your hand you’re in a
position that you can stay in for a few
minutes because although it does carry
faster than silicone it’s not
instantaneous I can feel it cheering
around my hand and for the most part it
doesn’t feel wildly different except
that just as my hand moves the tiny tiny
bit I now feel resistance where it used
to just move right through the liquid I
think I’m about ready to take my hand
out and the alginate does really get
into all the very tiny details so it
feels like it’s stuck to the sides of
your hand it’s not really chemically
bonded on there it’s just gotten into
every tiny little groove and nook and
cranny in your hand that it’s gripping
on pretty well so in my experience the
easiest way to get it off is to really
just start wiggling your hand around
inside the mold just a little bit and
you’ll feel it start to detach from your
skin and everywhere once it feels like
it’s loosened up you should be able to
just slide your hand right out here we
go and slid out pretty nicely you can
see down in there the cavity that hand
shaped cavity somewhat our Elgin AMOLED
seems like it’s working great my hand
came out of there without destroying too
much I can see the mold on the inside so
I think this is gonna work really well
so what we need to do now is mix up a
batch of our casting material we want to
be ready to do this immediately after
finishing the mold because an alginate
mold does not keep very long if you want
to expand its lifetime by a little bit
you can keep it in a sealed container
with a lot of wet paper towels that can
help it stay viable for even a couple
days but it is something that’s going to
degrade quickly so this is really
something you want to make the mold and
then cast into it right away our casting
material says that it is a three to one
ratio of the material to water so let’s
mix them up about enough to throw up a
hand giving a thumbs up and then pour
[Music]
that plaster is now nice and evenly
mixed together it’s definitely a thicker
substance than water but it’s thinner
than say honey like watered-down Elmer’s
glue maybe now I’m just gonna tap and
shake this bowl for a couple minutes
trying to get some of the extra air
bubbles out of the plaster I think we’re
now ready to pour our plaster down into
the alginate let’s hopefully I mixed up
enough if I didn’t however while the
plaster is still liquid I’ll be able to
mix up another smaller batch and add
that to it before I fill that all the
way I’m gonna take the mold just shake
that a little bit again I’m just trying
to get any air bubbles out I’m gonna tip
it to make sure that the thumb pull all
the way and all of the air bubbles are
out of that do that I have maybe a
couple of tablespoons left over plastic
so if your hands happen to be the exact
right size of mine then three cups of
this casting material and one cup of
water is the perfect amount
my hand is molded in the cast has now
been poured into the mold and that needs
to cure with this stuff it takes about
45 minutes before it’s ready to take out
of the mold so let’s set this the size
of 45 minutes and while it’s going I
think I’m actually just gonna whip up a
whole second box second batch of
alginate and make a second mold so I can
make sure I can get two of these thumbs
up castings I’ve got a second mold made
and we’re about ready to start making
the plaster but before we do there’s
some other things I want to try this
version of the hand I’m hoping we can
turn into a wall decoration something
that actually just attaches to the wall
with some threads so here I have a
threaded hook and we’re gonna try
embedding this in the plaster as it
cures and I also have this spare piece
of steel rod we’re gonna try and bend
that to a shape so it fits nicely into
the thumb I’m gonna fit this wire down
inside the mold right down into the end
of the thumb so that this angled portion
should be in the body of the hand so
it’s nice and stable and then after I
pour the plaster in I’ll take this hook
and lower that in as well so hopefully
we’ll have the hook embedded in it that
lets us have threads we can screw this
into a wall after its cured and a piece
of metal inside the
really giving that some good
reinforcement now the plaster does take
a little while to start setting up so I
think to get the hook to be in the right
spot I’ll try attaching a little bridge
of tape going across and just lower that
down into the plaster our first mold
with the casting in it has now been
sitting for 45 minutes curing and I
think it’s time we try and take it out
of the box now I don’t have a good way
to grab on to this so I think what I’m
gonna try and do to get it out is cut
the size of the box off and then
destroying as little as possible but I’m
just gonna pull apart the alginate to
get to the casting inside yep this is
just getting destroyed that’s okay
that’s what we use in Elgin at mold for
our first casting is now out of the mold
and I gotta say I am pretty happy with
how this thing turned out pretty similar
yeah yeah so this turned out really well
as you can see the mold did not survive
not even a little bit I had to just tear
it into several large pieces to be able
to get the casting out but that is what
we are expecting that’s what happens
with alginate the point of alginate is
you get one good casting and then if you
need several you can actually make a
stronger silicone mold off of this hand
there were a couple of spots where it
came out with some errors you can see
here this right here was an air bubble
when the plaster flowed down in it
couldn’t quite get rid of that right
there and even though I kept it mostly I
tipped in this direction and that air
bubble stayed stuck in there so if I
need to I could fix that up with a
little bit of spackle before I do any
decorations or just put this hand on
display
once you’ve done with your molding
you’ve already take the casting out of
it and it gets destroyed you can just
throw it away if you need a second
casting you can either make a different
mold off of the casting you made or you
can make a second mold the way we did I
think it’s time to D mold the second
hand and since the first one was in
there so tight I’m just going to go
straight to destroying the box and the
[Music]
now there were two pieces of metal that
we embedded into this hand one of course
is the hook at the back which is going
to give us the threads that hopefully
let us mount this onto a wall the second
is a bent piece of metal that I ran
through the thumb and you can actually
see it’s sticking out a little bit from
the tip of the thumb that most likely
means that the way the metal was resting
it pressed just slightly into the
alginate mold we’re gonna try and clean
that up just by going over with a file
look at that two separate castings of my
hand giving a thumbs up let’s see if we
can’t hang this one on the wall and make
a wall-mounted thumbs up
[Music]
for the hand that isn’t getting mounted
on the wall this is just going to be a
desktop accessory I want this to be a
little more decorative so I’m going to
paint it a hammered metallic paint you
can see how that looks but first I do
want to try and fill in these little
gaps it formed with the bubbles there
are several ways I can try and do that
I’m going to see how well it works to
use super glue and baking soda now that
we’ve done a little bit of cleanup and
I’ve got one hand as a desk decoration
and one that can be mounted onto a wall
as a hook or as was just a wall
decoration either way there’s lots of
options of what you can do with this and
of course you don’t have to use these
same techniques just to mold and cast
your hand the alginate is fairly
versatile and anything that you think
you can slip out of the mold you should
be able to cast pretty well of course
you don’t have to make it thumbs up if
you’re trying this you can do any
position you want just be aware that
some hand positions will have a tendency
to get air bubbles trapped inside them
to really need to make sure that you
rotate things around to get all of those
air bubbles out it’s a fun project that
doesn’t take too long and doesn’t cost
you much I’d give it four thumbs up guys
that’s not all there’s still more for
you to see that box up at the top will
take you to our last video you should go
check that out the box at the bottom
will show you what YouTube thinks you
need to be watching next just bomb here
in the middle of subscribe you to the
channel and that way you never miss a
video don’t forget to ring that Bell and
we’ll see you in the next one talk to you then
quick and easy way to make a mold and
cast of your own hand it’s fairly
versatile and the position of your hand
and what you do with the casting are
entirely up to you
[Music]
molding and casting is actually
something I’ve done quite a bit of and I
wanted to show you one of the very
easiest ways to do it yourself there are
two main ingredients a mold compound and
a casting compound I got both of these
at a local craft in a fabric store but
there are many options using the same
basic idea our mold material is
something called alginate and our
casting material is plaster with some
other added elements to it here’s the
basic idea we’ll quickly make a box
using foam core and a glue gun we’ll mix
up some alginate molding material and
mold our hand inside once the mold is
cured we’ll whip up a batch of our
plaster and pour it into the mold making
a perfect cast of our hand this box will
have a bottom and four sides to it and
of course no lid because my hand needs
to be able to fit down inside so I’m
going to start making some marks on this
piece of foam core that are just big
enough for my hand in the thumbs up
position to fit inside this piece right
here will be the base so now we need to
measure out the four pieces that will
act as the walls a 1 we have a little
bit of a gap at the bottom so my hand
isn’t pressed down on to it so let’s
lift that up and I probably want to get
molded up to right about here on my
wrist not far beyond the edge of my hand
but a little bit overall it looks like
we want to pour the alginate about 6
inches up and let’s give ourselves an
extra inch of wall just so we’re not
overflowing it we’ve got all five pieces
of our board measured out now let’s cut
them down we’ll probably also need to
trim the two narrower sides as well just
[Music]
all right we now have this beautiful
little white paper box and this should
do a perfect job of holding our alginate
this alginate mold material has a couple
of advantages and disadvantages over
mold materials we’ve used in the past
you’ve probably seen some of our videos
where we used silicone to make molds of
things and silicone is great for a lot
of uses it’s very durable it lasts a
long time you can get several casts out
of one mold but it does have some
drawbacks silicone is fairly expensive
and even the quickest stuff can take up
to 45 minutes to cure alginate cures in
about two to five minutes at most and
while that seems really good it does
have its own drawbacks alginate isn’t
very durable
you’re likely to get one or maybe two
castings out of a single mold it’s also
a very wet material while you’re using
it as a mold so there are some things
you can’t cast in it a lot of types of
resin won’t work well if they’re
surrounded by moisture however it is
perfect if you’re trying to cast
something made of plaster and because it
cures so much faster it’s a lot more
comfortable to try and cast say a hand
in this than it would be in silicone
because otherwise I’d have to put my
hand in the box and just hold it
perfectly still for like 45 minutes
before I pulled it out and then I’d have
a really hard time getting my hand out
of there silicone grips quite a bit
whereas the alginate is a lot more
slippery so I should be able to just
slide my hand right out of mold once
it’s done to get a good sense of how
much alginate mixture we’re going to
need let’s first fill up our box with
sand and then pour that into our Bowl
that’ll show us about the level we’re
expecting to get to I am also adding my
hand into the box to get an accurate
measure of the volume alright I think
that is just about exactly where we want
our alginate to go to that’s covering up
the end of my wrist see if I can pull my
with the particular alginate that I’m
using it has a ratio of 0.8 three cups
of alginate to one cup of water which is
1/2 a cup plus one third of a cup
to one cup of water if you’re using a
different brand of alginate it may have
a different ratio make sure you follow
the instructions that come with your
packaging
all right going for a thumbs up pushing
my hand down into the Elgin it all the
way at the bottom and then back it off
just a little bit so I don’t want it
touching the bottom just close make sure
if you’re molding your hand you’re in a
position that you can stay in for a few
minutes because although it does carry
faster than silicone it’s not
instantaneous I can feel it cheering
around my hand and for the most part it
doesn’t feel wildly different except
that just as my hand moves the tiny tiny
bit I now feel resistance where it used
to just move right through the liquid I
think I’m about ready to take my hand
out and the alginate does really get
into all the very tiny details so it
feels like it’s stuck to the sides of
your hand it’s not really chemically
bonded on there it’s just gotten into
every tiny little groove and nook and
cranny in your hand that it’s gripping
on pretty well so in my experience the
easiest way to get it off is to really
just start wiggling your hand around
inside the mold just a little bit and
you’ll feel it start to detach from your
skin and everywhere once it feels like
it’s loosened up you should be able to
just slide your hand right out here we
go and slid out pretty nicely you can
see down in there the cavity that hand
shaped cavity somewhat our Elgin AMOLED
seems like it’s working great my hand
came out of there without destroying too
much I can see the mold on the inside so
I think this is gonna work really well
so what we need to do now is mix up a
batch of our casting material we want to
be ready to do this immediately after
finishing the mold because an alginate
mold does not keep very long if you want
to expand its lifetime by a little bit
you can keep it in a sealed container
with a lot of wet paper towels that can
help it stay viable for even a couple
days but it is something that’s going to
degrade quickly so this is really
something you want to make the mold and
then cast into it right away our casting
material says that it is a three to one
ratio of the material to water so let’s
mix them up about enough to throw up a
hand giving a thumbs up and then pour
[Music]
that plaster is now nice and evenly
mixed together it’s definitely a thicker
substance than water but it’s thinner
than say honey like watered-down Elmer’s
glue maybe now I’m just gonna tap and
shake this bowl for a couple minutes
trying to get some of the extra air
bubbles out of the plaster I think we’re
now ready to pour our plaster down into
the alginate let’s hopefully I mixed up
enough if I didn’t however while the
plaster is still liquid I’ll be able to
mix up another smaller batch and add
that to it before I fill that all the
way I’m gonna take the mold just shake
that a little bit again I’m just trying
to get any air bubbles out I’m gonna tip
it to make sure that the thumb pull all
the way and all of the air bubbles are
out of that do that I have maybe a
couple of tablespoons left over plastic
so if your hands happen to be the exact
right size of mine then three cups of
this casting material and one cup of
water is the perfect amount
my hand is molded in the cast has now
been poured into the mold and that needs
to cure with this stuff it takes about
45 minutes before it’s ready to take out
of the mold so let’s set this the size
of 45 minutes and while it’s going I
think I’m actually just gonna whip up a
whole second box second batch of
alginate and make a second mold so I can
make sure I can get two of these thumbs
up castings I’ve got a second mold made
and we’re about ready to start making
the plaster but before we do there’s
some other things I want to try this
version of the hand I’m hoping we can
turn into a wall decoration something
that actually just attaches to the wall
with some threads so here I have a
threaded hook and we’re gonna try
embedding this in the plaster as it
cures and I also have this spare piece
of steel rod we’re gonna try and bend
that to a shape so it fits nicely into
the thumb I’m gonna fit this wire down
inside the mold right down into the end
of the thumb so that this angled portion
should be in the body of the hand so
it’s nice and stable and then after I
pour the plaster in I’ll take this hook
and lower that in as well so hopefully
we’ll have the hook embedded in it that
lets us have threads we can screw this
into a wall after its cured and a piece
of metal inside the
really giving that some good
reinforcement now the plaster does take
a little while to start setting up so I
think to get the hook to be in the right
spot I’ll try attaching a little bridge
of tape going across and just lower that
down into the plaster our first mold
with the casting in it has now been
sitting for 45 minutes curing and I
think it’s time we try and take it out
of the box now I don’t have a good way
to grab on to this so I think what I’m
gonna try and do to get it out is cut
the size of the box off and then
destroying as little as possible but I’m
just gonna pull apart the alginate to
get to the casting inside yep this is
just getting destroyed that’s okay
that’s what we use in Elgin at mold for
our first casting is now out of the mold
and I gotta say I am pretty happy with
how this thing turned out pretty similar
yeah yeah so this turned out really well
as you can see the mold did not survive
not even a little bit I had to just tear
it into several large pieces to be able
to get the casting out but that is what
we are expecting that’s what happens
with alginate the point of alginate is
you get one good casting and then if you
need several you can actually make a
stronger silicone mold off of this hand
there were a couple of spots where it
came out with some errors you can see
here this right here was an air bubble
when the plaster flowed down in it
couldn’t quite get rid of that right
there and even though I kept it mostly I
tipped in this direction and that air
bubble stayed stuck in there so if I
need to I could fix that up with a
little bit of spackle before I do any
decorations or just put this hand on
display
once you’ve done with your molding
you’ve already take the casting out of
it and it gets destroyed you can just
throw it away if you need a second
casting you can either make a different
mold off of the casting you made or you
can make a second mold the way we did I
think it’s time to D mold the second
hand and since the first one was in
there so tight I’m just going to go
straight to destroying the box and the
[Music]
now there were two pieces of metal that
we embedded into this hand one of course
is the hook at the back which is going
to give us the threads that hopefully
let us mount this onto a wall the second
is a bent piece of metal that I ran
through the thumb and you can actually
see it’s sticking out a little bit from
the tip of the thumb that most likely
means that the way the metal was resting
it pressed just slightly into the
alginate mold we’re gonna try and clean
that up just by going over with a file
look at that two separate castings of my
hand giving a thumbs up let’s see if we
can’t hang this one on the wall and make
a wall-mounted thumbs up
[Music]
for the hand that isn’t getting mounted
on the wall this is just going to be a
desktop accessory I want this to be a
little more decorative so I’m going to
paint it a hammered metallic paint you
can see how that looks but first I do
want to try and fill in these little
gaps it formed with the bubbles there
are several ways I can try and do that
I’m going to see how well it works to
use super glue and baking soda now that
we’ve done a little bit of cleanup and
I’ve got one hand as a desk decoration
and one that can be mounted onto a wall
as a hook or as was just a wall
decoration either way there’s lots of
options of what you can do with this and
of course you don’t have to use these
same techniques just to mold and cast
your hand the alginate is fairly
versatile and anything that you think
you can slip out of the mold you should
be able to cast pretty well of course
you don’t have to make it thumbs up if
you’re trying this you can do any
position you want just be aware that
some hand positions will have a tendency
to get air bubbles trapped inside them
to really need to make sure that you
rotate things around to get all of those
air bubbles out it’s a fun project that
doesn’t take too long and doesn’t cost
you much I’d give it four thumbs up guys
that’s not all there’s still more for
you to see that box up at the top will
take you to our last video you should go
check that out the box at the bottom
will show you what YouTube thinks you
need to be watching next just bomb here
in the middle of subscribe you to the
channel and that way you never miss a
video don’t forget to ring that Bell and
we’ll see you in the next one talk to you then
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