My group made a 1 piece hand mold and a 2 piece key mold.
1 Piece Hand Mold (Alja-Safe + Silicon)
The mold for the hand was made with Alja-Safe because it is skin safe and sets in 8 minutes. The powder and water were mixed in a 1:1 ratio in a Chobani container that I had that was big enough for a hand. We used silicon to make the cast, but we forgot that the mold material starts destabilizing after 4 hours, while the silicon takes 24 hours to cast. We were worried that the 2 materials would start mixing or the mold would soften and the shape would not turn out well. Michelle put her hand in the mold and took most of the pictures throughout.
There were also 2 holes on the side and bottom of the mold, probably because the hand was close to touching the sides of the container. We covered them with duct tape and put the mold back in the yogurt container to try to provide more external pressure and support while the silicon set.
After 24 hours, I went back to Nolop by myself to unmold the hand cast. The mold had started seeping liquid because it was past its optimal use time. I cut the container to take out the contents, and you can see how the silicon leaked on the bottom. I started taking away chunks of the mold to free the silicon hand.
This hand will hypothetically be used to hold our glove prototype for our group project.
2 Piece Key Mold (Alja-Safe + Liquid Plastic)
For the 2 piece key mold, we also used Alja-Safe to create the mold. Liquid plastic was used to cast the key afterwards. I held the top of the key as the bottom half was submerged in the setting mold, and after it was ready I cut a piece of paper to shield the 2 parts of the mold from each other so they wouldn’t stick and fuse into 1 piece. In hindsight it may have been easier to use clay, and also add little balls to match up the 2 parts better.
After the 2 mold parts set, I made a hole at the top of the top piece to take out the key, because it is wider at the top. After lining up the 2 parts, I stuck 2 paintbrush ends through the mold to hold them together. I made a paper funnel to pour the liquid plastic in the hole and tried to get rid of air bubbles by poking another paintbrush through the crevice. The casting material turned white as it set over 30 minutes, and I took out the key from the top of the mold. The final result had some bubble and was not the most clean, so there are definitely ways to improve this process.
