Quick and easy round soap mold

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lechon

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Went to the hardware store today and picked up a two foot section of 2" pvc pipe and a matching slip cap. Also picked up a four foot 2" wooden dowel. Rebatched some soap crumbles (ok i grated up some other soap too just for volume) and scooped the mess into the capped tube. After a few whacks of the capped end on the ground to get some bubbles out, I pushed the dowel down in there and tamped it down a couple times. Once it was cool, I used a hammer to tap the cap off, then turned the contraption upside down so the dowel was on the ground. Some steady downward pressure on the pvc pipe and the dowel pushed the round plug of soap out nice and clean. There was one break about halfway down, but other than that I have a nice two-foot section of round soap ready to be cut into bars.

The end where the cap was has a kind of mushroomy appearance where the soap filled the gap between the pipe and cap, but that's no big deal. There's some soap residue still in the pipe, and some caked on the dowel, but I don't mind that either. I'm sure the neighbors think I'm some weird shaman or something after walking around outside banging the big stick on the ground.
 
That's great you found a dowel to fit you PVC molds. I haven't found a "push stick" to fit my 3 inch pipes so I line them with freezer paper, which works ok but sometimes they do wrinkle a bit. Good thinking.
 
before I found the dowel, I was going to use another, smaller slip cap that fit inside the outer tube, and just push it with a broomstick or something. It was going to be a little snug so I planned on sanding it down a little, but then I found the dowel. You may even be able to take a two inch dowel and bulk up the end with some cloth and a plastic cover to make it fit your larger tube.
 
I use 3" wide PVC pipes myself and I have a stack of three soup cans that I use to push the soap out of the mold with. I use some freezer paper on the end of the pipe before I put the cap on to keep it from mushrooming also.
 
Badger, Thanks for the tip! I HP my soap and brine it out, then rebatch the pure stuff with any additives. At this point, the soap is very thick compared to a CP at trace, so I have to be meaner to it :D I was thinking of making an end cap like your freezer paper, but out of a two inch disk of plywood or something that will withstand a bunch of tamping. Worst case, I'll just fill the end cap with some epoxy resin.
 
Ah, yes, I can see how that would be a problem. Good luck with using the plywood or epoxy on it, those are both great ideas!
 

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