Smooth-On Alja-Safe™ Lifecasting Alginate Molding Powder, 3-lb Box

Great product for making molds of any thing you want. Ive used it for making molds of different lure designs and they have all come out great. I see several reviews saying the product is crap and others saying do not buy it. All I can say is that your doing it WRONG! If you use warm water, you already screwed up. The water at 80 degrees actually feels slightly cold to the touch. The warmer the water, the faster it sets up. 50/50 mixing ratio is a bit off for my liking but that's my opinion. I like to add an extra ounce or so of water to thin it down a bit which produces excellent details and pouring ability. Ive done several molds from this package including hands, feet and a face and still have some left over to play with. The trick is to find a water proof container just slightly larger than what your casting so you use less product. I use old lures melted down in an old microwave for my lures. This product hold up very well. If you cast a larger piece, you will see steaming and bubbling of the melted lures but in the end, when its cool, you still get excellent results and very few bubbles. Please, do not be put off by the negative reviews. Not every one can read and comprehend the instructions. Some people do not even try something small to see how the product works before trying the actual project. Ive yet to screw up one single project.

Product was delivered on time and worked as promised. I used this along with plaster bandages (ACTIVA Rigid Wrap Plaster Cloth) to make a half cast of a models face. The half cast came out perfect. The detail it captures is amazing. As a professional special makeup effects artist, I am very pleased with this product. I've never been disappointed by any Smooth-on products. Note when using this product: -The warmer the water is the faster it will set up. I like to used cold water to give me more working time. -You need to work quickly, it goes from a creamy texture to a solid before you know it. -Cover the model's eyebrows (or any facial hair they want to keep) with vaseline. It will take your hair out. -If used on the head, cover the model's head with a bald cap (it will take your hair out) -After a few hours the alginate will start to shrink and dry out, so be ready to more whatever plaster or resin in the mold as soon as possible. -Shrinkage can be fun! I got the alginate off the plaster in one piece (yeah! that doesn't always happen) and saved it by placing some very wet paper towels in the alginate so it would shrink without cracking. I checked on it every day. After a few days the face impression was about the size of my hand and slightly warped. I poured plaster into the smaller head mold. The result is a plaster cast of a slightly "S" shaped, shrunken head. It's just a fun, weird conversation piece and it totally freaked my model out (so it was worth the time). If you have extra time and extra plaster.... and you like weird stuff. :)

Update: I have now used this product for over a year and it still works great. I'm on to cold number 2 and I have made over a dozen casting from the one bag. Again it will depend on how buig your projects are as mine are infant's feet and hands. I love it as much as when I first bought it. I wanted to make body castings of our newborn baby son's feet as he grows the first year and this has worked well! The one bit of advice I would recommend is making sure to dip the body part and pull it out and then put it back in to get rid of air bubbles. Also when filling with plaster pour slowly and rotate it around to fill all the little nooks and crannies before completely filling. The instructions were very informative and helpful in guiding me in obtaining good results. There is enough material to do several pours. I have done 3 babies feel and 1 set of clasped hands and one small test mix to test at the beginning using my thumb and still have enough for several more baby feet! I keep it twisted tied closed and in the box in a dry cool place and haven't had any issues over the past 12 months.

Super awesome stuff! Very first time using this for my husband and I and we really didn't know what to expect. We followed the directions (and by following I mean both he and I reading the instructions out loud multiple times) and the instructions seem fool proof. And just to make sure we understood the whole process we even watched a couple videos on YouTube. For the sample mold I was going to do my finger in a little plastic container (a small Tupperware meant for ranch dip) and we figured out (after re-reading the instructions) that the warmer the water the faster it sets up. So the very first one we had to toss because it set up faster than we could get a finger into the container. Second sample mold my husband just used his thumb. Same container and that mold came out good. (We made the water as cold as we could get it so we had time to mix and make sure his thumb was in there). Thumb mold came out really good(it's kind of creepy how detailed everything came out)! So then at 9:30 pm last night we decided to do our hand mold. I thought 3 lbs would be enough to get out holding hands and some of our wrists so that the finished project could stand a little taller. I didn't have anything to really fit both of our hands (he's got a monstrous hand and I've got these petite but long fingers) so I just used the box (plastic bag inside). We used up all the rest of the product and finally after about 15-20 minutes we were able to free our hands out of the cast. Lots of cleanup because we don't have any special tools that we were able to borrow from the shop without having to sterilize and clean (we work on a farm so instead we just used our hands to mix the Alja-safe in a bucket). I ordered the alja-safe smooth cast 300q from another review I'd read and ordered the part a and part b VERY FAST SETTING in the shade of white. When it says it sets up very fast what it really means is that you've got about 5 seconds to get whatever air bubbles out before that stuff sets up. Which we didn't have time to do. I'm only giving 4 stars because of my own personal reason that I wish the alja-safe could have the option in size for how much of it you want or think you'll need. And that the parts a and b came in a little bit bigger jugs then the 1 lb bottles that we got because with just mine and my husbands hands it wasn't enough. That and this awesome stuff is on the pricier side of things which is why we just got it done and over with. I am pretty pleased with the end result and it just takes some hands on to know exactly what you're doing and how to do it. I suggest having a third person helping like I wish my husband and I needed last night to mix everything or whatever. Some air bubbles and some fingertips were lost because we didn't have time to get the air bubbles out before part a and b set up but end result is we've got a little sanding we'll do to make it stand evenly as well as get rid of some imperfections. Awesome Mother's Day gift or birthday present. Will be purchasing again in the future...and my mom said she'll be doing this with my 2 youngest siblings so I'll be helping them with that!

Very easy to use alginate! Included a reference chart for how much to use for each part of the body which was extremely helpful for beginners. Cure time is fast, but I slowed mine down by using slightly cold, filtered water. Picks up every tiny detail perfectly. Bought a few boxes to take multiple castings of a pregnant belly and they turned out great! As mentioned before, the chart is extremely helpful, but it doesn’t include any references for pregnant bellies, but stated a full torso would only take 1.5lbs. Since I bought extra, I decided to try 3lbs just to be safe since I was dealing with a larger belly. What a waste! Not only was it waaayyyy too much, it was too heavy & the mold didn’t turn out right due to the excess weight. Tried again only using 1.5lbs and was a perfect amount for doing a cast with both parents hands on the belly. The mother wasn’t too big compared to most pregnant women so when it came time to just do just the belly I only used a pound which was plenty. I’m very pleased with this product and will now be my go to product for future projects. Easy to use and clean up.

We purchased this after our seven year old passed away to try and immortalize his hands before burial. Shipping was quick and came right on time. The instructions were a little vague on things like "add all of the powder at once to all of the liquid" (it actually works best if you start with all of the powder in the container and pull off to one side and then add all of the liquid to it) or the fact that you cannot add more water once you start mixing, but even with our little slips, it still turned out an incredible cast of my baby's hands that show such incredible detail as fingerprints and the skin details on the backs of his hands when molded with plaster. Also not noted on the listing, but you only have about 4 hours to get the mold poured after casting, so if you want to use any specialty resins, you need to order them at the same time (like the smooth on 300Q would be perfect) so that you can make multiple castings. We just used plaster because it was all we had available and couldn't wait for shipping of another product, and it worked beautifully. Really really stunning results.

Worked perfectly as expected, I need a little more practice with it. I wish the instructions were simply 1 cup of this with 3/4 cup of that and not convoluted but if I was a bit more patient maybe it wouldn't matter

Easy to use with every clear directions. Makes extremely clear molds for creating a multitude of casts. Great value!