# My Big Project...



## donniej

I openly admit that I'm extremely jealous of the work that many of you post here.  The talent in this forum absolutely amazes me.  But what I might lack in artistic ablities, I hope I make up for with knowledge of metal fabrication and industrial machinery.  

You might have guessed, these pics are of a soap production plant that I'm working on.  I hope that it will be complete in 1 or 2 months, I already have 4 months invested.  My goal is to make a very inexpensive, all natural soap, both liquid and bar.  I have access to a steady supply of both used cooking oil and raw glycerin from local BioDiesel makers.  These will be my main ingredients.  I have 5 years experience with working with used cooking oil and processing BioDiesel.  I have about 2 years experience making soap from both raw glycerin whole oil.  

This is for purifying used cooking oil.  It can process 500 gallons per day and can hold 1,500 gallons.  







The oil can be pumped from the 3 vertical tanks to the mixing tanks.  The tank on the right is for liquid soap.  This is a serious mixing tank that I still can't believe I have.  It was last used for making leather dyes and is food or pharmacuetical grade.  The one on the left is for bar soap.  It has an open top (for scooping out) and big 2" pipes on the bottom, which should be great for pouring the soap into molds.  Both are stainless steel and will hold ~120 gallons each.  






Right now I only have one small mold that I made for samples to give away.  It makes two 4 foot loaves, totaling 90 bars.  






Here's some bars drying...






This is the inside of the bar mix tank.  The propellor is driven by a 1700rpm, 3/4hp motor.  The shaft and propellor are stainless steel.











The other side of the building has containers for storing materials and finished liquid soap and my work shop.  The square white containers are 275 gallon each.






This is my work shop.  Being on a tight budget, most of my equipment needed repair or to be built from scratch.






And this is me   






Thanks for reading!


----------



## candledoll

What a set up!!


----------



## Godiva

Well aren't you cute!  And that is some set up!  Like your Fight Club poster on the wall, too.


----------



## candice19

Holy moly!  wish you the best of luck and success!


----------



## donniej

Thanks everyone!  
When I explained to people what I was going to do, so many people asked "like in Fight Club?" that I had to get the poster  

By the way, despite the fact that the oil is pumped from tank to tank, this is still a handmade product.  Nothing is automated, all materials are measured by hand, checked by hand, the bars are unmolded by hand and packaged by hand.


----------



## Guest

WOW, that is quite the  fantastic set up . It sounds like you have thought of everything possible. Way to go , and I wish you great success with your business.


Kitn


----------



## Guest

Man that is pretty awesome!


----------



## rubato456

:shock:   jawdropping! best of luck! what a great set up!


----------



## LJA

Dang!  Impressive!  Looks like you put a ton of work into that.  Congrats and good luck with your new venture!


----------



## ChrissyB

DonnieJ that's fabulous. Looks like you have got every avenue covered. You weren't a science major by any chance were you?
Your soap looks great! Where do you get your used oils from?
And love the poster...I was trying to find one on ebay but I just to settle with a pic of Brad Pitt instead...gee life's hard


----------



## Galavanting Gifts

Oh my good golly goat!!! :shock: that is awesome, man I gotta be getting my husband to get me a setup like that lol, he gave me a power saw for our anniversary, a jigsaw for my birthday, imagine the look on his face when I ask him for something like THAT!


----------



## Guest

oo that was a very interesting post. Do you have a team that will be helping you or is it a solo project? I'd help out if I lived closer  

Good luck with the soap factory!


----------



## AshleyR

That is really cool!!!


----------



## donniej

ChrissyB said:
			
		

> DonnieJ that's fabulous. Looks like you have got every avenue covered. You weren't a science major by any chance were you?
> Your soap looks great! Where do you get your used oils from?



I went to the community college just long enough to be 1 credit short of an associates degree in Liberal Arts.  I have no formal science education.  I do however constantly research (on forums like this) and have learned a lot that way.  
I get about 50 gallons of oil per month from a nice old bar in center city.  Most of that I use for fuel for my truck.  I have several other places lined up and will start picking up their oil very soon.




			
				Galavanting Gifts said:
			
		

> Oh my good golly goat!!! :shock: that is awesome, man I gotta be getting my husband to get me a setup like that lol, he gave me a power saw for our anniversary, a jigsaw for my birthday, imagine the look on his face when I ask him for something like THAT!



I thought I was the only one who had a girlfriend who loved getting tools as gifts.     She has a degree in woodworking and was a cabinet maker before going back to be a teacher.  




			
				Soap_for_breakfast said:
			
		

> oo that was a very interesting post. Do you have a team that will be helping you or is it a solo project? I'd help out if I lived closer



I'm solo.  As I start producing, I expect to hire 1 or 2 part timers to package it.  I could have looked into getting a packaging machine but this way it's still all hand made.


----------



## topcat

Wow!!! :shock: 

What a wonderful setup donniej, and congratulations on taking this path for your income.  Do you have a big enough retail market base for your soaping endeavours, or will you grow that once production is up and running?


Tanya


----------



## donniej

My prices will be low enough that I should be able to compete with crappy old store bought bars... so I'm hoping I can sell to plain old big store retailers.  That's my hope anyway...


----------



## ChrissyB

Good luck Donnie. It sounds like you have sound business ideas behind you.


----------



## vivcarm

Good luck and all the best.


----------



## eucalypta

Extremely cool!
I admire what you are doing - and hurray for your GF 

luckily i have three daughters and a son, who all enjoy working with tools as a hobby, thus tools are as natural gifts as nailpolish would be 

Good luck to you


----------



## cassy

*Wow*

That is amazing.  Are you married?  ha ha..


----------



## Guest

WOW :shock: your set up is fabulous!!!  I didn't realize you were talking about soap on a BIG SCALE  

Here is a tip for FREE employees (your looking for packagers, or any untrained labor) South Philadelphia Earn Center, gov't will subsidize the pay at 100% for the first three months, and 50% next three months or so...but you have to pay a min of $8 an hour

PM me anytime, again...congrats your set up is impressive!


----------



## jkay081

Good googly moogly!!!!  That is AWSOME DUDE!!!


----------



## studioalamode

Impressive!  Wow!  Truly awe inspiring to see someone take a dream and make it come true!


----------



## heyjude

That is _really_ something!  What a great setup you have. Keep us posted on how you're doing.   

Jude


----------



## Guest

Yes. we all want progress reports, pics, and general updates as to how its coming along


----------



## donniej

Thank you for all the great feedback!  I will keep you up to date on my progress, hopefully I will have good news very soon.  

As of now I have the processing tanks and some oil.  I ordered 9 or 10 pounds of FO's from carillon (here on the forum) and I hope to have a connection for lye & potash this week.  I'm hoping that in 50 pound bags I can get it for <$1 per pound.

I also have a 1,000 foot roll of clear PVC heat shrink tubing for packaging but to be honest I'm not sure it looks any better than kitchen plastic wrap and it's a lot harder to use.  I'm hoping to find some heavy brown paper to use (prefferably 100% recycled).  

Meanwhile I still have to finish wiring electricity to my bar mix tank, start building molds, building drying racks, register the business name and find insurance.... not to mention find people who will buy the stuff  

I hope to have a mold done ASAP so I can make more samples.  Now that the mix tank is nearly ready, it would be nice if I could crank out a ~1,000 bar batch this week.  Even if I have to lay plastic sheeting on the floor as a temporary drying rack  :wink:


----------



## craftgirl08

HOLY MOLY!!  What an awesome set up there!  You are definately going to be making bulk soap.  I will be thinking about all your HUGE equipment as I make my little 1 pound batches of soap.  hee,hee!

craftgirl


----------



## Dixie

Ok, so do we all get a signed autograph of the last pic so that when you have your own warehouse and fabulous chain franchise stores across the country we call all make a little something off your picture ? lol
WOW! Your are more than a little addicted!


----------



## donniej

Just a little update after a hard days work...

It really sucks that all processing equipment has to be stainless, allow me to explain.  I got my liquid soap mix tank, bought a motor for it and made the mount... except the motor was too fast for the mixer.  So I had to get a new motor and make a new mount ($$$$$$$ and a major PITA) or make a new mixer.  The materials to make the new mixer were'nt exactly cheap but still less expensive and easier than setting up a new motor.  

So with 50 pounds of stainless steel rod and plate I got to work.  The first problem with stainless steel is that it doesn't like to be cut.  It took the teeth off my band saw and ate up grinding wheels... luckily I have a plasma cutter but the cuts were very rough and needed to be cleaned up.  After I made 4 blades and machined the shaft to fit the tank, I had to weld the blades I made to the shaft.  This was the first time I ever had to weld stainless (304) and it was like trying to hot glue sticks of butter that I just took out of the freezer.  No fun at all!  

But after a 12 hour day, it's all together and works like it should.  I am however filthy, covered in grinding wheel dust, stink like burnt metal and am looking forward to a long shower..... just as soon as I finish another glas or two of wine   

Also this week I modified a 55 gallon drum into a measuring tank.  I welded on legs, added a sight tube to measure oil and installed a heater and pump.  This way I can pump a specific quantity of oil into this measuring tank, heat it to whatever temp I want and then pump it into one of the mixing tanks.  It took 2 or 3 days but it came out pretty nice.

I'll get some pics of both in a day or two.  I also got a couple potential customers!  I'm happy that it seems I may be right that an inexpensive, all natural soap will sell easily.  Wish me luck!


----------



## heyjude

Boy, have you been busy! Sorry that you had to go through all that extra work, but it sounds like you've really made alot of progress.   

Looking forward to more photos and updates.

Jude


----------



## Guest

I can't wait to see the new pics


----------



## starduster

*well that takes the cake or a thousand..*

Impressive soapmaking place,
cute soap-maker!


----------



## donniej

OK, here's what I've been up to.  

The tank on the right, number 5 is my liquid soap tank.  







Inside the tank was this massive "boat anchor" style mixer (aka agitator).  I got the tank with the agitator but no motor... 






I got a motor and gear box off Ebay which runs at 170rpm, which apparently is too fast for that agitator.  The motor would strain and after it got up to speed, the agitator would try to throw the liquid in the tank up and out the openings.  For reasons previously stated, I decided to make this new agitator instead...
The pic is a little fuzzy, partly because the tank is full of water...






Now the motor doesn't strain at all and though it still creates a "tornado" effect, it's not so violent as to throw the liquid out of the tank.  This pic is through the 2" fill port.  






To test how well it works, I added a small bottle of black food coloring and it completely mixed with the water (~100 gallons) in less than 15 seconds.  It didn't look any different in the pic though  :wink: 

Lastly, here's my measuring tank.  The tube running down the front is a clear, 3/4" hose which allows me to accurately measure how much oil I'm putting in the tank.  An electric heating element is installed in the bottom to heat the oil as well.  You'll also notice a grey box with 2 red switches, they're in a water-proof enclosure and are to operate the pump and heat.


----------



## Guest

WOW. :shock: I'm just imagining all the soap, it's gonna be big, real big 8)


----------



## Guest

Your set-up looks dyn-o-mite! I really wish you well


----------



## starduster

*Watch this guy, he's taking  over the world*

:wink: There wont be a dirty critter left on the world once that baby gets producing and your soaps are let in the wilds of civilization.


----------



## Annmarie0407

R u kidding????????? That is soooooooo awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!


----------



## LJA

I wanna be your employee just so I can come and hang out in your cool place with all your cool soap stuff.   :wink:


----------



## donniej

Thanks everyone for the words of encouragement!

I'll try to get some more pics soon, I'm nearly finished my loaf slicer, which will cut a 4 foot loaf into 50 bars with a single pass.  I'm also wating on a shipment of supplies to do some more experimenting.  I should have 50 pounds of stearic acid and 10 pounds of bees wax by the end of the week, not to mention the 10 pounds of assorted scents I recently got from Carilon here on the forum.  I just hope I can find local suppliers of all this stuff before this runs out because shipping is killing me!  

This week I'm also going to try making a new mold, it will make two, 50 inch loaves (100 bars total) and will be lined with teflon coated fiberglass that a friend gave me (he makes it).  I hope it's non-stick enough that the molds don't have to come apart.  If it works out I'll have 19 more to make   

And if that's not enough, I'm already thinking long and hard about drying racks.  Today, while stopped at a convenience store, I noticed some bakery type racks.  They were the perfect dimensions, had lots of ventilation and were even on wheels!  I got the manufacturer info off them and hope that I can find some used or if I'm really lucky maybe they're not too expensive new.  We'll see


----------



## vivcarm

Fantastic


----------



## tincanac

I'm jealous - I have a portion of the garage!


----------



## clownfish159

So what ever happened with this?! I'm curious to see it!


----------



## IanT

NOW THAT IS AN EVIL LAIRE!!

Holy crap dude!!!

Dude how do you afford all of that!?!?!?! 

lol I want ooooone!


need an intern? lol man you are going to be mass producing soap in no time...

One question for you though... cleanup... how are you going to manage cleaning all of that stuff out between batches? or are you just going to pretty much make a main unscented batch and mix it in smaller things to add the scent (thus you could probably technically leave the unscented soap in the stuff without cleaning it) who knows maybe it would be like the whole "mother dough" concept in baking lol


----------



## Lynnz

WOW thanks for sharing your soaping venture with us. I wish you all the soap sales you can manage (and that will be a few by the looks of your setup!!!!!)


----------



## donniej

Thanks everyone.  Unfortunately it dodn't work out very well.  The building owner was my business partner and all the equipment is mine (paid for by me).  For reasons I don't care to discuss, I thought it was in my best interest to part ways.  

I still have most of the smaller equipment like the stainless mixing tanks but the large filtration system and big tanks all ended up being hauled away as scrap metal.  I couldn't even sell them.  

To be blunt, my life is in a certain amount of chaos right now.  I have thousands of dollars worth of equipment crammed into a small garage I'm renting.  The garage has little electricity, little access to running water and no heat.  I've moved the bar-soap drying racks, molds and cutter into the basement of my apartment along with my stock of essential oils and other bar-soap making supplies.  I have the equipment and knowledge to make huge quantities of soap, biodiesel or both but no place to do it.  At this point I'm also a little skeptical that I have the business or organizational skills to do it alone.  

I don't really know what else to do so I'm back in community college working on getting accepted into a university chemical engineering program.  Hopefully by the time I graduate I can figure out what I'm going to do with my life (for the second time)... in the mean time I'm looking for a job, trying to make some soap with the space I have and doing my best to get good grades.  

Meanwhile I'm still doing what I consider to be very sophisticated experiments.  I've gotten very good at separating oil into glycerin and fatty acids, purifying raw biodiesel glycerin... and of course making both bar and liquid soaps for a variety of applications.  I'm even in the process of experimenting with a centrifuge to quickly sequester liquid soaps, purify raw glycerin and separate different fatty acids.  I've even succeeded in producing nickel metal catalyst for hydrogenating oils.  All these experiments have been on my own, by myself but I'm hopeful that if I can continue my work that either a university or industry will find me and want to encourage my work.  

Also very importantly is my girlfriend (who I live with) who is beginning to grow impatient with my lack of income, long hours in the garage and occassonal depression.  It's been a very tough past year, I'm not sure where I'm going but I'm still hopeful it's a good direction.

If you have any advice (or encouragement), I could use it.  
Thank you.


----------



## Deb

90 bars is a sample!? Dang, I'm impressed

Who do you plan on selling all these to? And how are you going to clean out some of those tanks?! i have images of you crawling in with a really big brush


----------



## donniej

Hi Deb,
Please see my reply at the very bottom of the last page (3).
I'm not at that facility anymore, nor am I making the kind of quantity I had once hoped...


----------



## IanT

dude im right there with you man.. my girl is like if you dont get out of the house, I cant do this anymore... its hard to go anywhere with no gas and no job lol... im sure you feel the pain too as I probably go thorugh the same moods etc.....

too bad to hear about the huge garage thing not working out... thats not cool!...

oh well.... youve learned something, and you still have the skills etc to do everything... keep your hopes up and youll achieve your dreams bro!


----------



## Bubbles Galore

I'm really sorry Donnie. Just sending motherly hugs from Melbourne, Australia and hope your life gets back on track soon.  :wink:


----------



## pinkduchon

That is amazing!! Best of luck to you. I love the ambition. Is it hard to make bio diesel into soap? I have a supplier I can get it from but have no idea where to start.


----------

