New mold, and strategies for removal (freezing)

I made a new mold this week, it is an oval from PVC pipe. It came nice, I greased it up with Vaseline sealed off the bottom with cling and poured me some soap!

This morning, I just can't help but play, I considered demolding the soap I made this weekend in it. From the first appearance I could see slight separation around the edges (separation from the mold, not separation of the soap ) and figured I would try and get it out.

Well, I shook it. That didn't work. I tried to seal my face to the opening and blow it. That didn't work either. I took some cling and crammed a rag inside it hoping that would make enough of a seal to plunger it out. That didn't work. Then it got to be time to leave for work.

I didn't want to mess with it too much, it is too early to remove this morning anyway to so I just set it upright and it will sit until I get home tonight.

I plan on trying to blow it out again. If that doesn't work I think I will either try to make a plunger from wood. However, before I go to that much trouble I may toss it in the freezer for a little while and see if that helps first. How long to people usually freeze soap for removal? Are you just trying to chill it or actually let it freeze rock solid?

I know this is water under the bridge, but I roll a flexible chopping mat into a cylinder with the smooth side innermost, then insert that into the PVC pipe and tease it out till it is the same shape as the pipe.

The soap gets poured into this liner so when it is time to unmold you can slide the liner out of the pipe, unfurl the liner and release the soap.

If the pipe is a little shorter than the liner, so much the better as you will have a purchase for your fingers to grip and pull on the liner if there is any resistance.

I have seen that discussed before, and I even considered using some freezer paper, figured I could slightly wet the inside of the pipe and then the liner would sit flat against the wall long enough to pour the soap.

However, I figured I would try the Vaseline as a release agent and just hope for the best

It may still be too early to demold it anyway, but if it comes to trying the freezer, I was wondering how long. I assume if I freeze it solid I would be able to beat it out of there But if I can just cool it down a few degrees and shake it out, that would be my preference., follow?

Absinthe said:

I have seen that discussed before, and I even considered using some freezer paper, figured I could slightly wet the inside of the pipe and then the liner would sit flat against the wall long enough to pour the soap.

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or you could grease the inside of the pipe with some mineral oil. The paper should stick to that.

Absinthe said:

However, I figured I would try the Vaseline as a release agent and just hope for the best

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I have never used Vaseline as a release agent even though some swear by it.

Absinthe said:

It may still be too early to demold it anyway, but if it comes to trying the freezer, I was wondering how long. I assume if I freeze it solid I would be able to beat it out of there But if I can just cool it down a few degrees and shake it out, that would be my preference., follow?

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Never had this problem, so I am afraid I cannot help you.

Too late for this time, but I line the PVC molds with freezer paper and that works like a charm.
I haven't done it myself but I have read (go ahead and laugh, LOL) to put the mold in the freezer for a few hours.
Hope you get it out of there nicely!

Na laughing necessary. I will probably use a paper liner next time, live and learn.

Of course, it is also possible that by the time I get home it will just be ready to come out on its own. (I can hope)

A few hours... In my freeze a couple hours would freeze the soap rock solid I think. I could probably beat it out with a sledge hammer if i wanted to at that point.

I am too impatient on this, I want to see the colors

Absinthe - you don't say if you did this cp or cphp or what method you use. Again, I realize this is water under the bridge but.... I ONLY using the pvc molds now, I love them! Doing cphp, I spray mine with the cheapest cooking spray I can find and they slide (and I DO mean slide - had one go flying accross the room the other day! Yep, it went airborne on me and fortunately landed on my couch about 10 ft away and no damage was done other than me being seriously stunned, lol) right out. After molding I put mine in the fridge until I'm done molding, then in the freezer until I'm done with clean up and they're reasonably cool (not cold) to touch. Then I carefully slide them out. They're still really fragile at this point so I let them sit for another hour or 2 before cutting.

If they stick in the mold at all, I figure the batch is lye heavy and I do a rebatch but that's only happened once and fortunately it was with a 1/4 lb test batch.

I'm sorry I thought I said it, but I guess I meant to. I am doing CP. I have yet to work up the nerve to do CPHP or any of the other HP methods. Maybe some day.

I think any cooking spray I used would get saponified with CP which is why I used the vaseline.

I will give it about 5 minutes effort tonight, then straight away into the freezer with it.

Absinthe - you might have told us, I'm not reading very well this morning, sorry. I had the same problem doing cp and belive you're right - any cooking spray saponified and made it a total nightmare to get it out of the tube, finally gave up. I even tried WD40 but the smell never went away (yuuuuck!) CPHP is not a scary as it seems, there is lots of good info out there.

In the mean time... I wouldn't bother with the extra 5 minutes of effort - I would just put it in the freezer for about 1/2 hour and then try it. HOWEVER, as I said, I don't do cp and don 't know how this will effect/affect the quality of your soap. I know there are experts on this forum that can help you better than I.

Good luck, my heart goes out to you, been there & done that and know how utterly frusterating it can be.

even if you frreeze it you may still need a plunger.

Well, the plan is to go from easiest to hardest.

First step is to see if it is easy enough to get out once it has actually been molded for a full 24 hours instead of trying it earlier than it had any business being done.

I will then put it in the freezer, 1/2 hour at a time up to 3 hours.

If that doesn't do it, then I will trace the shape on a piece of wood and cut and sand a well fitting plug. I may want to do this anyway to avoid using the cling wrap and packing tape to load it. Once I have a plug that will fit, then seemingly I should be able to mechanically force it out.

I can't imagine that I should require more than that, but worst case scenario, I have a razor and I am not afraid to use it.

You can put a can (of food) on the bench and put your pvc pipe on top of it and push.

ChrissyB, not to be a smart @$$ but I don't have any cans that are oval.

I am sure that would work really well for the 3" round mold, but I heated and squished this one to be an oval.

I fear if I put a can in there it would likely just make a mess of the center of the soap instead of pushing it all that well.

I can cut a piece of wood to shape and make a plunger of it, I am just hoping not to be forced to do that.

Absinthe said:

I am sure that would work really well for the 3" round mold, but I heated and squished this one to be an oval.

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Ok, now I'm really intrigued - how in the world did you heat up pvc pipe and squish it evenly to make it oval????? I'm not real mechanically inclined and now I'm really curious. I'd love to see a pic if you can find the time to post one.

Thanks.

with a board along the length. there's a tutorial out there somewhere for it.

Absinthe, not to be smart a$$ back....
But what about a can of spam or something, aren't they oval?

(And originally I meant a smaller can than the inside of your tube).

Did this soap gel?

Ok, long story short, my sweetie got it out before I even got home. Just basically shook it out, took a few minutes. Must have been in the way.

I cut it up, the effect was not exactly what I was hoping for, but cool none the less...

Sunkawakan said:

Ok, now I'm really intrigued - how in the world did you heat up pvc pipe and squish it evenly to make it oval????? I'm not real mechanically inclined and now I'm really curious. I'd love to see a pic if you can find the time to post one.

Thanks.

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I took the 12" piece of 3" PVC, placed it on a cookie sheet in a 250 preheated oven. Then I went over to the TV and watched something until a commercial came on. That was 15 minutes or so. Then I took it out of the oven with a hot pad, went back to the TV and laid it on the floor. I then took a board and pressed it down on top of it, and flattened the crap out of it. This was not my intention, but I may actually go back and do that on purpose some time, it was kind of a cool shape. Kind of a rectangle with rounded ends (instead of just rounded corners, imagine of two rounded corners connected).

I then put it back in the oven and went back and watched some more TV, after another 10 minutes I took it out and squished it back the other way (with a lot less brute force ) until I looked like I wanted it to.

It is not hard, I figure the board, or even a long book would work, to simply even out my pressure, but I probably would have gotten the same result with just my bare hands.

At 250 F it gets pretty darn workable. It is not difficult at all. And if it screws up you just stick it back in and start over. Worst case scenario, throw it away, I think it was a couple bucks for 2' probably would have only been 5 or 6 for a whole 8 or 10 feet.

ChrissyB said:

Absinthe, not to be smart a$$ back....
But what about a can of spam or something, aren't they oval?

(And originally I meant a smaller can than the inside of your tube).

Did this soap gel?

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Hmmmm, spam? Do you eat a lot of that in your house? I haven't eaten that since I was in the military, and doubt I would ever do so on purpose, due mostly to the huge quantity of it I had eaten. That being said, I don't have any spam cans, but I doubt it would match the random oval I had created.

I already had a bottle that was similarly shaped though smaller, but when I tried that it simply impressed the soap. My suspicion that it had not finished doing what it wanted to do was confirmed when I got home and it was sitting out on the counter on my chopping mat. My sweetie banged it down on the floor and it moved in the opposite direction. Then banged it back in the other direction. This showed that it was willing to move, and then simply shook it up and down until it slid right out. Basically took just a few minutes. What a difference 10 hours makes.

Here is what it looks like