I had all kinds of good reasons to start making our own soap:

 I had lots of free lard, which we get whenever we buy a pig from our neighbour

• It’s challenging to find reasonably priced soap which isn’t full of fragrances, toxins, and hormone disrupters
• It’s fun to learn how to do things that are useful
• I wanted a ‘tea tree’-scented soap to deter ticks in the Spring

 …and so I began to research various soap-making recipes and techniques. Whoa… People who blog about soap-making, a.k.a. “Soapers”, are INTENSE! I’m talking about a level of passion more typical of a die-hard Brazilian football fan!

In any case, there is loads of information (quite a bit of it rather good) online for anyone who wants to begin making their own soap, so this is not a “how to” soap-making post.

Instead, I thought I’d quickly document how I used some salvaged HDPE pipe from the dump and scrap lumber I had lying around to make a machine to create attractive and functional oval soap slugs that have a symmetrical curve.

I first determined how much I’d need to DEFORM the more-or-less round HDPE pipe in order to get a nice-looking oval. I built a quick form out of lumber which would hold the pipe in the desired shape while it cooled. Then I cut several sections and heated them for 15 minutes at 120 Celsius (250 F), until they were somewhat soft and malleable.

Wooden “plugs” were cut and temporarily screwed into the bottoms of the newly made oval ‘soap molds’, and I filled 2 ½ of them with a cold-process lard and coconut oil soap, scented with tea-tree oil (feel free to contact me if you’re interested in the recipe I created for this batch).

The next morning, I built a wire-cutter machine, which effectively HELD the oval molds securely in place while I swung a taught, stainless-steel wire through the emerging “loaf” of soap. (see images)

One caveat: In order to ‘break the soap free’ and START it sliding loose in the mold, I had to make use of my shop press—but as soon as the soap began moving, I could extrude it by hand with a plunger I made to fit inside of the form. I imagine this step could be avoided through the use of either some sort of ‘release agent’, or by lining the mold with parchment.

This was my second batch of soap, and I’m pleased with the look of these cut oval bars, as opposed to my previous batch, which I formed in silicone muffin molds.

With 49 bars (minus Christmas presents!), I’m sure we’ll make it until next fall!

-Tim