[Result] Casting baby hands and feet

Dear Orchidians,

I would like to thank all who reacted to my post on how to cast baby
hands and feet. Especially John Dach for the link to Pink House
studios (www.pinkhouse.com), which set me on the right tracks
(although they didn’reply to my enquiery). Another key word for
search engines is body-casting.

I thought you might be interested, so here is how I did it:

You need: Alginate Plaster bandage and of cours a baby.

Alginate comes as a powder to be mixed with water (2-3 volumes) at
20-35B0C it gets solid after 5 -10 minutes, based on algae it is
completely harmless to the skin. It was discovered by E.C Stanford in
1883.

Wait until the baby falls asleep in the arms of a parent, making sure
one arm is slightly spread from the body. Mix the alginate with 36B0C
warm water, and fill your hand, carefully lay the babies hand on the
alginate inside your hand and cover it with more alginate. Now wait
for the alginate to solidify. Once the substance has taken on,
carefully pull the babies arm. You will now have the imprint in the
palm of your hand. Now cover the outside of the alginate with the
plaster bandage and let it dry before casting the wax. I then
hollowed out the wax hand to 0,5 mm wall thickness after having
carefully cut it in two halves.

The result was excellent, full of fine detail, customers were happy,
(the baby didn’t notice) and I was happy to have it cast in 24K! and
set on an ebony square after finishing. And more coming my way… :slight_smile:
(excellent bread and butter!)

Another possibility is using the shrinking material, and making a
pendant. But I haven’t tried that yet. Will report as soon as I have
tried.

Easy if you know how, as usual. Thanks again and best regards from
Geneva Switzerland.

Poidi Trauttmansdorff

If you let the alginate dry in a controlled atmosphere like a
dehydrator for making beef jerky or dried fruit it will shrink.

Larry Paul
Larry Paul Casting Co.
740 Sansom St.
Philadelphia PA 19106
215-928-1644 @Lpaul