crumbly on the bottom...

[charlotteda]

How can I avoid crumbling on my non gelled GM soap. I line the wooden mold with wax paper..... fill mold... leave in fridge for 16 hours... remove from frig... dump out on wax paper. 24 hours after that I cut it into long lengths with my knife... then I can fit the long slices in my regular cutter. I'm having trouble with the soap crumbling on the bottom while cutting.

1) soap too fresh ? (I'm afraid I will wait to long and be unable to cut )
2) knife too fat ?
3) wrong cutting technique

Charlotte

 

[kimberlynn]

I may be wrong here, but what I understand is that crumbly is not good when it comes to soap making. It's lye heavy if you get a zap from the crumled piece. There are lots of threads on rebatching you should check out. Maybe get a second, third or even fourth opinion from some of the more seasoned crafters on this sight.

 

[DottieF.]

I generally let my soap gel, but, once in a while I use an eo or fo that's better not gelled. When I have done this, my non-gelled soap is not crumbly, just softer. If you have soap that is crumbly you have another problem. Your soap may be lye heavy or was not truly at trace when you poured it. Dottie

 

[gekko62]

I reckon its the thickness of the blade that causes it. I get it using the wood handled cutter even. Is ok thru most of the cut but when it gets near the base it sort of breaks/crumbles. Ive tried a thinner blade,which sliced clean,but was so flexible it wobbled all over the place & resulted in a drunken wavy bar.Am looking into using wire.

 

[karajan]

I second gekko. I used to have the same problem until I started to use wire to cut my soap. Now, there's no crumble at all at the bottom!

 

[charlotteda]

I'm sure its not lye heavy... I think its more of an equipment or technique problem.

I tried one of those cake cutter wires but the wire didnt want to go through the log. Maybe I can find a thinner knife to make the long cuts.

thanks

 

[Healinya]

I gel soap, because my $6 soap slicer does a horrible job when it nears the bottom of ungelled soap. A thin coat of mineral oil helps me a lot when unmolding. This probably was just a figure of speech, but I wouldn't 'dump' it on the counter - I handle ungelled soap better than I would a baby lol...