debbism
Well-Known Member
Having been inspired by the wonderful people here, I am motivated to get off my arse and get the curing rack project underway.
Right now, we are using plastic baskets stacked on top of each other - about 3-4 high - using boards to stack since nesting them would not work as they would hit the soap tops. Like this.......
We found them at Big Lots here in So Cal as well as The Container Store online.......
http://www.containerstore.com/shop?prod ... tic+basket
Of course, we are limited by how much counter space we have to put these out as they can only go 3-4 high - each basket seems to hold about 5-6 lbs of soap so too high would probably stress the bottom basket.
So the issue is being as busy as we are - there just isn't time to build one of these fabulous curing cabinets like here
http://soapmakingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27825
My husband works 90 hour work weeks and while I can make wooden soap molds and log splitters just fine, building a cabinet system from scratch is just not part of my skills set yet.
Sooooo, I was googling around for inspiration and saw a great rack here:
http://jovia-life.blogspot.com/2009/04/ ... -rack.html
It seems easy to duplicate with some elbow grease - But the suggested places to find these came up short until one word popped up.......IKEA.
They have a product line called GORM.
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00058519/
The exact kind of shelf in the picture - just about - but you do not have to cut wood to make your own extra shelves since the GORM line has extra shelves you can purchase. Judging from the picture, the shelves should have about 4" - 4.5" of space between shelves...enough to comfortable set a layer of curing soap....even our mountain top ! Unfortunately, the baskets we are using are 5.5" tall so they would not slide into the spaces at all
I estimate total cost for the unit and extra shelves will be around $120 bucks - the unit is $40 and extra shelves are 7 each - will probably keep the bottom shelf larger to store molds.....but will get all 10 extra just in case, plus the cross braces.
There is a smaller Gorm rack that is not so deep about 13" instead of 21" and the total cost to turn it into a rack would only be about 80-90 bucks IF you got ALL the shelves to fill in the rack.
So this seems like a good solution to the curing rack.....right now, we have about 80 lbs of soap curing and another 40 lbs to be cut tomorrow and many more batches to make to jump ahead for the spring so you can imagine that we are running out of places to stack these baskets!
I will of course post pics as the rack is being put together and set up. It shouldn't be too crazy to do but I know the shelves need to be assembled so it will just take a full day or so to put it all together.
So it is off to Ikea I go!.......................
Right now, we are using plastic baskets stacked on top of each other - about 3-4 high - using boards to stack since nesting them would not work as they would hit the soap tops. Like this.......
We found them at Big Lots here in So Cal as well as The Container Store online.......
http://www.containerstore.com/shop?prod ... tic+basket
Of course, we are limited by how much counter space we have to put these out as they can only go 3-4 high - each basket seems to hold about 5-6 lbs of soap so too high would probably stress the bottom basket.
So the issue is being as busy as we are - there just isn't time to build one of these fabulous curing cabinets like here
http://soapmakingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27825
My husband works 90 hour work weeks and while I can make wooden soap molds and log splitters just fine, building a cabinet system from scratch is just not part of my skills set yet.
Sooooo, I was googling around for inspiration and saw a great rack here:
http://jovia-life.blogspot.com/2009/04/ ... -rack.html
It seems easy to duplicate with some elbow grease - But the suggested places to find these came up short until one word popped up.......IKEA.
They have a product line called GORM.
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00058519/
The exact kind of shelf in the picture - just about - but you do not have to cut wood to make your own extra shelves since the GORM line has extra shelves you can purchase. Judging from the picture, the shelves should have about 4" - 4.5" of space between shelves...enough to comfortable set a layer of curing soap....even our mountain top ! Unfortunately, the baskets we are using are 5.5" tall so they would not slide into the spaces at all
I estimate total cost for the unit and extra shelves will be around $120 bucks - the unit is $40 and extra shelves are 7 each - will probably keep the bottom shelf larger to store molds.....but will get all 10 extra just in case, plus the cross braces.
There is a smaller Gorm rack that is not so deep about 13" instead of 21" and the total cost to turn it into a rack would only be about 80-90 bucks IF you got ALL the shelves to fill in the rack.
So this seems like a good solution to the curing rack.....right now, we have about 80 lbs of soap curing and another 40 lbs to be cut tomorrow and many more batches to make to jump ahead for the spring so you can imagine that we are running out of places to stack these baskets!
I will of course post pics as the rack is being put together and set up. It shouldn't be too crazy to do but I know the shelves need to be assembled so it will just take a full day or so to put it all together.
So it is off to Ikea I go!.......................
