Soap Cutters

[sudszensoaps]

What is the best affordable (less than $50) soap cutter? I have avoided making loaf style soap lately because the simple cutter I have really doesn't do a good job. I end up with slanted top to bottom bars of soap.

 

[Rune]

A cheese cutter is very affordable, and seems to work according to the ones I have seen on Youtube using it. You can buy something like this: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=cheese+c...fix=cheese+cutter,aps,284&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_5_13

You easily modify it to make it work even better as a soap cutter, like just gluing on two sticks:



Or do like this:



A cheese slicer/cutter is the cheapes option. But if it is the best of the best, well, perhaps not. But it probably is good enough.

I had plans to do just this. But didn't because I found it difficult to get a cheese cutter without spending too much (everything is impossible to find locally where I live, but also in the country I live in). So I ended up ordering a single wire soap cutter from Turkey instead. It was cheap, but shipping was not too cheap, so it became much more expensive than what most people have to pay for a cheese cutter. But not so much more expensive than what I had to pay for cheese cutter included shipping from abroad. I can't remember what I paid for my soap cutter, but it was allright.

I could send you link to where I bought my soap cutter in Turkey, since she have very affordable ones and they work perfectly fine. But I suspect you are from America, and shipping will be high. Most likely way too high.

 

[atiz]

I got a vegetable cutter at the grocery store for about $10. It's a straight blade so much better than a knife (no V-shape). I use it with a miter box and it cuts quite nice. Would not be ideal for cutting hundreds of bars but I only make 16--24oz batches at a time.

ETA: If slantedness is your problem, you might need a new miter box instead of a new cutter... A miter box really helps.

 

[earlene]

Before investing in a Bud Cutter (about $50.00 at the time), I used a stainless steel kitchen knife and a kitchen cutting board. My cuts weren't the most uniform, but ANY means, but it was the cheapest method as I didn't have to buy anything.

Later, I graduated to using a mitre box and a stainless steel painter's knife (sort of like a putty knife) pictured here:

The cost for this was about $10.00 for 'knife' and free for the mitre box because we already had that. I bought the painter's knife at Home Depot.

I have also used a stainless steel pastry scraper, which can be purchased for as little as a dollar at some locations (I have seen them at the Dollar Store and at the Goodwill for a dollar). It works well with or without a mitre box.

There are many possibilities for under $50 on etsy, ebay and Amazon, etc., but for now, perhaps the above options might be a good start.

 

[Cal43]

If you are handy, make one. I made mine for 10.00.

 

[Rune]

I have tried the mitre box with a painter's knife sort of thing. Actually the same yellow mitre box as you have, or very similar. It did not work for me. The mitre box is way too small. The soap was higher than the box, and I laid my soap on the side. I have a tall & skinny mold, which is narrower. But it did not help. And the opening where you cut was too wide to give a straight cut. I could not get it to work. You can of course make a mitre box yourself, which would be much better. Higher and with a snug opening for cutting.

 

[earlene]

I do get much more uniform cuts and soap sizes with my Bud Cutter, but as a beginner, to save money, the mitre box worked very nicely. The height and width of the soap, of course, would matter, which is why I bought the tallest painter's knife I could find. . The shorter ones would not have gone all the way through my soap log. The Norpro I had wasn't quite tall enough to get through some of my soap loaves. The other drawback was that the knife is so thin and the slots are made for a saw, so there was a bit of wiggle room with the knife, meaning potentially the soap cut won't be completely straight. Some are better at getting a straight cut than others. I'm not very good at it myself, but the price was right for a beginner.