The Greening of Gavin

Making My Soap Box

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Who is ready to build a soap box?  No, not to stand on, but to pour home made soap into!

Okay, they are probably more technically a soap mould, and much better than getting on ones soap box.

Pretty basic design.  I used 13mm (1/2 inch) ply off cuts.  My friend David then brought around his Triton workbench with electric saw attached and we cut up the ply into the right sizes.  Nice and straight cuts.

You can see the big stack of individual sections next to my tool boxes.  I took the measurements from a wooden 1 kg (2.2 lbs) soap mould, and basically copied it.  It was very easy to construct after all of the pieces were cut, and I was amazed at the simplicity of the design.  Just one long length of plywood,  89 mm (3½ inches) wide then cut into various and screwed and glued together.

I used some PVA glue to fasten the pieces and then screwed in place with 20 mm wood screws.

The bottom of the mould had to be sanded individually for each of the boxes.  Usually I only need to trim off a millimetre here and there, so that it would fit snugly.

Once I got the bottom to fit, I screwed on some legs to make it easier to put on and off.

As you can see, I made six new soap moulds, with the original one at the front of the stack.  I gave each mould a final sand to smooth all surfaces, and showed Kim.  She was ecstatic!  One less thing to worry about for our first community soap making course on the 3rd of March, which by the way, is overbooked, so we are holding and additional course to cater for the demand.
By the way, all power tools used during construction, except the saw which lied about its wattage, were powered using my small solar power system.  So there is no electricity costs to these moulds.  Watt a bonus!
What do you use as a a mould when you make soap?

About Gavin Webber

Gavin Webber's daily goal is to live a more sustainable lifestyle, in an effort to reduce his family's environmental footprint so we can all make a difference for our children & future generations to come.

Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

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