Hand Casting Procedure

Difficulty Level: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Its even easier if you purchase our EASY Hand Casting Kit or EASY Baby Hand Casting Kit

A single hand cast is the easiest of the lifecasting projects.

In a nutshell, here are the steps:

1. Choose your pose, bucket, alginate and casting material.

2. Mix the alginate and make the mold

3. Mix the casting material and pour the cast.

4. Unmold your casting.

5. Fix any little flaws in the cast and apply a finish.

We're going to cover all these, and more, in the discussion below.

Please be Advised: It is nearly impossible to do hand casts on children between 6 months and 3 years of age. They don't understand and they don't keep still long enough.

Certain poses are easier than others and more recommended for first time lifecasters. Other poses are difficult even for the most advanced lifecasters.

In general, a relaxed hand is more attractive than a tensed one.

Fists are very difficult to remove from the alginate when it sets and are discouraged.

Also discouraged is any pose that has fingers pointing "up" during the molding. Level is fine, but if the finger is pointing up (bent more than 90°, its going to make a hole in the alginate mold that is pointing up. It will be very difficult to get stone up into it and get the air bubbles out. These usually end up poorly.

The exception to this is when the finger pointing up is touching another finger or the palm of the hand. For example, the universal "OK" sign works because the thumb and forefinger are touching and LiquiStone can flow from one to the other in the mold.

HERE'S A TIP: If the model has long fingernails, get some oil based clay (Plastilina or Sculpy are examples). Put a small bit of the clay up under the fingernails to thicken them to about 3 times their normal thickness. You can taper the clay so the end of the nail is thin and pretty, but the rest of the nail should be thick enough so the stone casting doesn't break there.

Most rings will work fine. Wedding Rings with very large, very intricate settings will scratch the alginate when the hand is being withdrawn from the mold. Also, very loose rings might stay in the mold when you remove your hand.

Bucket: We'll start with the bucket because that will determine how much alginate we're going to need.

You'll want to select a container that is big enough to comfortably hold your hand without touching the sides or bottom, but not overly big. If the container is too big you'll just be wasting alginate.

Accu-Cast sells a series of special Hand Casting Mold Buckets. Check them out by clicking HERE.

TupperWare makes a lot of different sized storage containers that make terrific mother molds. The one quart is great for small children, 4 quart for two hands and the 8 quart is great for 3 or 4 adult hands.

You could also use a half-gallon milk container (top cut off) or a 2- or 3-liter soda bottle.

If you're using the PVC pipe, do the following and you'll have a much easier time:

This will allow you to easily disassemble the mold bucket to get your casting out.

Choosing your Alginate: Bigger projects will require an alginate with a longer setting time than a small project.

NOTE: The numeric portion of the alginate name refers to the minutes of setting time at a particular water temperature (ie 390-S2 will set in 3 minutes using 90°F water). As always, warmer water will speed up the set and cooler water will slow it down.

380-CC (Color-Changing Alginate)

1 minute	1 min 29 seconds
2 minutes	3 minutes

How Much Alginate Do You Need?: Here's the easiest way to calculate it.

Here's an old expression my father taught me:

"A pint's a pound, the world around."

A pint of water actually weighs about 1.015 pounds, but its close enough.

Mixing the Alginate: (See this page for more mixing tips) There are many ways to mix alginate.

1. In a big plastic bowl with a big kitchen whisk is good but can take a lot of work for amounts over 1 pound.

2. In a bucket with a power mixer (an electric drill with a paint mixing attachment) is also good but a little complicated for most people. Run the drill in reverse (anticlockwise) to avoid whipping a lot of bubbles into the alginate.

3. We're showing "Mixing-In-A-Bag" at the right. You'll need a strong plastic bag (at least 3-mil) that is at least three times as big as is necessary. Put the alginate in the bag, pour in the water, squeeze out the extra air, twist and pinch the open end of the bag closed with your hand, put the bag down on a flat table and smash, mush, rub squeeze the alginate mass until all the dry alginate is wet and reasonably well mixed (about 1 minute).

If you use the bag technique, put the open end of the bag into your bucket and squeeze the alginate out into your bucket. Cleanup is pretty easy with this method.

Accu-Cast sells "Mix-In-The-Bag" Alginates in 3 sizes, 1 qt, 4 qt, and 8 qt.

Making the Mold: When the alginate is in the bucket, put the hand(s) in.

IMMEDIATELY TAKE THEM BACK OUT AGAIN. Rub the hands paying particular attention to the fingernails, between the fingers and into the lines of the palm- all places that tend to trap air bubbles.

Put the hand(s) back into the bucket and push them down until they touch the bottom of the bucket. Pull the hand(s) back up approximately 1/2 to 3/4 inch. You can gauge this by looking at the alginate "line" on your wrist. Until the alginate begins to set, the hands will have a tendency to "float" upward. Watch that alginate line and you'll be able to keep track of, and eliminate "float".

Make sure you've assumed your pose.

Make sure you're not touching either the sides or the bottom of the bucket. Make sure your wrist (forearm) isn't touching the inside of the bucket up at the top.

Ideally, the top surface of the alginate will be approximately 1-inch down from the top edge of the "bucket". If it is fuller than this, scoop a little alginate out onto the tabletop. This 1-inch area will become the hand casting's base as described below.

Wait until the alginate is no longer sticky on the surface. Wait an additional 1-minute before starting to remove the hand(s).

Getting your Hand(s) out of the Mold: At this point, the alginate is quite stiff and you can't just pull your hands out. Here's how to do it:

1. Have someone break the "seal" around your wrists so air can begin to flow down around your hands. Move your wrist, hand and fingers back and forth in order to allow air down. You MUST feel air "All the way down" to your fingertips before beginning to pull upward out of the mold. Sometimes one finger will take quite a bit longer than the others to break the seal on.

2. As you pull upward, you must be aware that you need to allow air down into the mold to take up the space being vacated by your hand(s). At this point, SLOWNESS IS A VIRTUE. If you go too fast and yank your hands out, you could damage the mold and the casting won't be good. You should hear wet slurping noises as your hand comes out.

Your hand(s) should come out completely clean. If there is alginate still on your hand, you didn't wait long enough to let it set completely or you were moving during the time the alginate was setting. (This happens a lot with small children.)

IMPORTANT: Alginate begins to dry out and shrink almost immediately. We recommend that you pour your alginate mold as soon as possible after you pull the hand(s) out. If you must wait more than 10 minutes, cover the exposed surface of the alginate with a wet paper towel. Under NO circumstances should you wait more than 1 hour before pouring.

Choosing a Casting Material: LiquiStone is our brand of gypsum cement. It has a final setting strength of about 8,500 psi which we feel is ideal for hand castings. For more information, CLICK HERE.

Plaster of Paris is NOT GOOD for hand castings because it was WAAAAY too soft and will scratch and degrade very quickly.

There are other gypsum cements on the market. We don't advise that you use one that is less than 6,000 psi or more than about 14,000 psi. Also make sure it has a working time of at least 10 minutes.

You can pour platinum catalyzed silicone, urethane, Forton, and some acrylic resins (not the clear ones) into alginate molds. You can also pour chocolate, jello or wax into alginate molds (make sure they are well chilled before unmolding). We won't be able to go into mixing or pouring techniques for these other materials here- sorry.

LiquiStone is a fine grained, white gypsum cement with an ideal compressive strength of approximately 8500 psi.

Working time: About 15 minutes

Initial Set Time: About 60 minutes

Full Cure: About 24hours.

Cleaning Up the Mold: With a sharp blade, trim extra alginate away from the mold. Specifically around the perimeter it can be a little nasty- as well as immediately around the wrist hole(s). This saves time cleaning up the casting at the end.

Don't let any of the alginate trimmings to fall into the mold and please, please, please- don't cut yourself.

Mixing LiquiStone Gypsum Cement: We recommend a 2.5 to 1 (powder weight to water weight) mixing ratio for LiquiStone. Other gypsum cements will have different ratios but you want the stone to be "just pourable". Too thin and it won't set very hard, too thick and it won't pour well and you run the risk of trapping a lot of air bubbles.

Usually mixing in a bucket with a paint stir stick is sufficient, but a sturdy kitchen whisk mixes faster and more efficiently.

You can also mix the gypsum cement "In-The-Bag" like we did the alginate. When you do this technique, snip off the bottom corner of the bag once it's mixed, and squeeze the stone mixture into the mold.

Pouring the Casting with LiquiStone: Once the LiquiStone is mixed, begin to slowly pour the mix into the mold. It works better to pour the stone onto the surface of the alginate and let it spread out and spill over the edge into the mold. This forces many of the air bubbles in the stone mix to pop.

1. Fill the mold about 1/2 full and STOP.

2. Firmly tap the sides of the mold bucket with your closed fist for about 15 seconds. This jars the stone mix and allows air bubble to rise.

3. Fill the mold up to the top of the alginate, stop and tap for another 15 seconds.

4. Continue filling the bucket until the stone level is at least 3/4 of an inch above the surface of the alginate.

5. Tap the sides of the mold bucket for at least 30 more seconds. You will notice air bubbles rising to the surface as you do this.

6. Let the poured mold stand for at least 1 hour. Two hours is probably better. Then go to the next step. It is better if you don't wait more than 6 hours.

Unmolding the Casting: Once the LiquiStone is firmly set, take the alginate slug out of the bucket. If you are using the Accu-Cast Mold Bucket, just take the tape off the side cut, turn the bucket upside down, spread open the side cut and lift it off the mold.

If you are having difficulty getting the alginate out of your "bucket", you can use compressed air to help. Drill a small hole into the bottom of the bucket and shoot a pulse of compressed air into the hole. The alginate comes popping out a least 99% of the time.

In some cases, you may have to destroy your "bucket" by cutting it with a sharp knife.

With a small knife, cut small pieces of the alginate off. Continue slowly until you begin to expose the casting inside. Once you see the casting you can take larger pieces off because you know where the hand is and where it isn't.

Be very careful to NOT put lots of sideways pressure on the fingers. The stone still hasn't reached its ultimate strength, so the fingers can be broken off if you're being rough.

Continue taking off the alginate until its gone. If you've done two hands, it can be tricky getting the last bits out from between the hands. Toothpicks, sharpened popsicle sticks, small pieces of bent wire and/or compressed air can help.

Accu-Cast sells a LifeCasting ToolKit that has a large assortment of tools specifically designed for this type of job.

Finishing the Casting: Hand casts very rarely turn out perfect right out of the mold. Some "fixing" work is almost always necessary.

There are two kinds of bubbles that commonly appear: "Innies" and "Outies". Innies are caused by bubbles in the casting stone and Outies are caused by bubbles in the alginate.

Innies can be filled with a small amount of LiquiStone. Be sure to thoroughly wet the repair area before filling. If you don't the large mass of stone will immediately suck all the water out of the patching stone and it won't set properly.

Outies can be popped off with a knife or filed down with an emery board or something similar.

Any rough spots on the base can be sanded off with sandpaper.

If you want to paint your casting, you must wait for the stone to dry out. In warm dry climates, that's usually 3 days. In extremely humid ones, this can take a week.

Spray paints generally work well. Several light coats always work better than one thick one. White and gold spray paints have lots of pigment in them and go on very thick- obliterating all the detail- if you're not very careful with them.

Krylon and Rustoleum (and others) make wonderful metallic spraypaints that can give your casting the look of a bronze sculpture.

"Modern Masters" paint company, www.modernmasters.com, make a wonderful series of brush-on paints. Our favorite is one called "Flash Copper Sheer".