Easy to make wood mold.

[JustBeachy]

Fantastic!!! That came out looking great. Nice job to you and your husband. Enjoy the soap making today.

And.......Merry Christmas to you both.

 

[Dahila]

Fantastic. Dewalt is also good name, my guy spend thousand on table saw, circular sow, and hundreds of others. He told me that he loves his tool as much as I love my soaping and lotion making )) Maybe i should have one with the slot for cutting too??

 

[Seawolfe]

Fantastic. Dewalt is also good name, my guy spend thousand on table saw, circular sow, and hundreds of others. He told me that he loves his tool as much as I love my soaping and lotion making )) Maybe i should have one with the slot for cutting too??

I adore DeWalt - and my other xmas pressie was a 20V DeWalt drill!!

I really like having a cutting slot, and if I want to make cuts less than or greater than 1 inch I just use a ruler and a block. I almost never use that flat scraper that came with it - but a very thin sharp knife.

 

[Dahila]

what about them making professional multiply soap cutter, I heard that guitar strings are very good for it

 

[JustBeachy]

what about them making professional multiply soap cutter, I heard that guitar strings are very good for it

Thats my next project.

 

[Dahila]

I told my hubby that I want it for my birthday)))))) He is not too happy now

 

[JustBeachy]

Dang, you all just don't quit do you?

Now I want a tall skinny mold :crazy:

3 4 or 5lb?

 

[Seawolfe]

5 lb! You can always partition it off if you want a smaller loaf :twisted:

 

[Jstar]

3 4 or 5lb?

I think I better do a 3 lb for starters..never used a tall skinny one before, and I got some soaps I'm still curing so anything larger will have me in overflow status me thinks

If this shoulder would just lighten up a bit more {it 'does' feel a bit better} then I'll be hopping right back off into my soapy adventures and I need to control space lol

 

[Jstar]

5 lb! You can always partition it off if you want a smaller loaf :twisted:

LOL..Enabler

 

[jnl]

ive been thinking of ways to create a mold
was thinking of hinges so all 4 sides could fold down
or a design like in this thread
or one of those "puzzle" kinds that needs no hardware, just holds itself together

i think this design is the best for me because i can resize it
and you can make different end pieces with a notch to hold a divider to make fancy split color designs. or cut a 3rd end piece and make 2 separate loaves at once.

my biggest thing is I HATE lining the mold
folding freezer paper is such a pain, and i dont like the indentations it leaves in the ends of the soap
and i dont want to buy an overpriced silicon liner
BB's are too floppy
some of the other sites like ED's are too stiff
and i dont want one with the ribbing that you cant use in a wood mold
so i want to take some thin silicone baking sheets i have and GLUE them to the sides of my mold
the long screws that clamp the wood together would make a seal everywhere except the bottom of the two end pieces, but i think that would probably be ok.
if not, i could notch out the bottom piece of wood so the 2 end pieces rest inside which would stop any leaks


has anyone ever tried gluing silicone to a mold before? good idea? bad?

 

[jnl]

i made a soap mold today, similar to the original one posted in this thread. i put a ledge on the long side pieces to hold up the bottom piece. and i put a ledge on the bottom piece to help hold the small end pieces up, and to help prevent any leaks. i cut a third end piece so i could do 2 small loaves at once if i wanted. its designed to make 12 one inch bars with an extra quarter inch on each end of the mold for trimming. designed for 3.25" x 2" (up to 2.5" if you fill to the top) x 1" (or wider, but you get 12 soaps at 1" cuts). single direction slice for bars. bars will be in "landscape" mode, so pretty top patterns will be on the long side of the bar.

i will line it with either mylar or super thin plastic cutting sheets or very thin silicone. the liner will fit on the long sides going down below the base and past the short edges, so it will help seal and be held in place. the bottom liner will be held down by the two short end pieces, and i will just glue the liner to the short end pieces. tightening the butterfly bolts should make it water tight. no need to tape anything, no annoying freezer paper, no wrinkles, no "vaseline as glue", no leaking (hopefully).

 

[navigator9]

Making your own wooden mold makes buying a silicone liner much more affordable. When Nurture Soaps comes back on line, they have some very affordable liners. I used to fold freezer paper when I first started soaping, but always hated doing it. Soon after, I bought my first silicone liner, and I've never looked back. Now, I make all of the wooden boxes, and buy the liners when they're on sale. Try one, and you'll be hooked!

 

[jnl]

i would love to buy a silicone one piece liner, but no one makes them in the sizes i want.
and some of them are way too thin (and become baggy), and some are way too thick and make it more difficult than it should be to get the soap out. i think i have only ever seen one that looked like the right balance between thick and thin.

i figured out what size bar of soap i want to make, and made the mold to fit my bar. a lot of those silicone liners either make really wide bars, or its 2 bars per slice, and i dont like the look of that extra cut on the bar.

if i was ever going to do a large volume i would make a big cube block and discard the exterior sides so all bars are a uniform. or use lots of single bar width molds if i wanted pretty designs or fancy tops.

if anyone buys a one piece liner, they can just make a super simple box that is all screwed together - no need to make the sides removable because the silicone mold will just slip out.

i like the look of those big log slices, but even with my really big hands they are not comfortable to hold. my hands are as long as a mans. i dont know how girls with smaller hands hold those big pieces.

 

[Dorymae]

I think you have a very innovative idea. I hope it works out for you! Once you have it lined, try filling it with water to see if it will leak. Soap is a little thicker but it will give you a good idea what to expect without having to worry about caustic batter leaks.

 

[jnl]

i just put water in it and it slowly leaked out
a liner will help
i might get a couple different things for liners and try them out and compare (with water) to see what works best

and i might even buy some silicone and paint it on all the insides
the only reason i dont just do that is because im not sure i can paint it on as smoothly as i would like. silicone is really thick and i tend to "play" with it too much and make it messy.

even if i use another type of liner, painting the edges that compressed with silicone should be enough to seal it for soap.
but i will test the other things first to see how well they work

 

[McSpin]

The original design is a good one. An improvement can be made to secure the bottom by simply cutting a dado in the side pieces for the bottom to set in, or you could cut a half dovetail in the bottom and the sides, that would mesh to together to secure the piece. These can be cut by hand if you are good with a handsaw, but a table saw or router would make it quick and easy. Neither would require any additional hardware or screws.

 

[jnl]

i found some thin silicone baking sheets. yay! and they were on a killer sale (like $2.30 for a 23" x 19" sheet).
i stuck it with tape to the mold just to test it
this silicone is so thin it could not hold itself up so i would have to glue it to the mold
so i tested it and its ALMOST water tight with water
i think if i paint the raw wood edges that compress against another part with a thin layer of silicone as well then it will be pretty much water tight
and even light trace CP soap is quite a bit thicker than water

 

[ngian]

I just did my second and final update on my wooden mold and although it had many things to solve / be done, I'm very satisfied with the final product.

Well a third update came over my wooden mold, as after my first CPOP method the little metal plates were a bit out of place and also the wood somehow had a tiny curve and the mold didn't close very well for next batches.

So I did update it to the assembly method that is very easy and good working/managing its size as others here in this forum have used too.

 

[JustBeachy]

Good to see people are still getting some mileage out of this thread. I've been too busy with work and life to breathe so I haven't been around in a while. Liking some of these new ideas.

Carry on.