And Now for Something Completely Different

[lincmercguy]

A friend of ours makes and sells soap.  She brought a couple of rough designs to me and asked me to make a soap mold and cutter.  I had never thought about how soap was made in small scale (I imagine high volume is similar to injection molding).  She is working with a smaller mold and a knife, but needs to increase her batch size.  I can say with complete certainty that this is the best soap mold and cutter I have ever made.  


One of the pictures shows routing the slots in the sliding table.  When I built this workbench, I put a Peachtree T-Track in the middle and have a few different styles of hold-down clamps.  I really like it when stuff like that is useful.

[attachment=17007]
[attachment=17008]
[attachment=17009]
[attachment=17010]
[attachment=17011]
[attachment=17012]
[attachment=17013]
[attachment=17014]
[attachment=17015]
[attachment=17016]

[museumguy]

Pretty cool. Any clue how it works?

[Stwood_]

What size bars is it cutting? Getting any free bars?

[Gary G™]

Looks like 3 guillotines.

[lincmercguy]

"What size bars is it cutting? Getting any free bars?"

It cuts the large slab into 3.5" chunks, then those are cut into bars with a knife. My wife gets sample stuff from her quite a bit, usully experimental batches.

[BrokenOlMarine]

Miss Tina makes all natural soaps, they are very popular.  I have made several projects for her including stands for display when she goes to craft shows, and soap savers for her to sell from cedar.  The cutter looks nice, but I would need to see how it works.  I have seen a number of designs, most use Guitar Strings as cutters.

[lincmercguy]

This uses the guitar strings as well. Zoom in on the last two pictures and you'll see them.

[Dan Moening]

It cuts the large slab into 3.5" chunks, then those are cut into bars with a knife.

You've made a pretty slick rip-cut sled for the slab ... looks like you (your soap making friend) now need a cross-cut sled to cut the "chunks" into bars.

I have no idea how much is being produced, but time is money.

[stav]

I have to say that is the finest soap mold cutter that I have ever seen.  First one too.  Very nice.

[Arlin Eastman]

Well done buddy.



My wife as wanting to make soap for us and the kids so maybe in the future I will have to get back with you.