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Single Cut Soap cutter... Dammit...


Sponiebr

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For all' y'all that KNOW me, nothing's changed. 
For those that DON'T, I'm a CHEAP BASTARD. 


I've FINALLY gotten to the point where I HAVE TO cut equally sized bars of soap and can no longer "improvise" with the "rustic hand cut" routine... (I DID have a good long run of that though.)
Anyway SOAP cutters are EXPENSIVE... I don't DO "expensive". (See above for details) 
 

Hence my newest creation: Single cut soap cutter. It's made out of scrap, salvaged, and repurposed everything, (EVEN THE SCREWS are used). It may be goofy looking, but I'm hopeful that it will perform well. It's set FOREVER at 1" thick cuts.

Ok so, I DID actually order ONE new part for this thing (ONLY ONE MIND YOU). I got the CHEAPEST pair of Bass Guitar tuning machines I could find on Amazon ($9.99 shipped) which means I'll have enough for ANOTHER (hopefully nicer looking one) in the future that will never happen, because I'm ALSO a LAZY BASTARD... (Hey! I OWN IT!) 

(AND NO... I can't be bothered to finish it. See above for details) 

WIthout much further ado... I present the single cut soap cutter: 

{*Cheap 1980's midi 8 bit fanfare plays softly in the background*}

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Cheers, 

Sponiebr
The Executor of BAD Ideas and Sundry Services 

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I bought a similar one from Etsy. Here are my thoughts. It will work for a while BUT wood is hard to clean and then it starts to warp.

The wood soap cutting tools including one from Asia all warped out on me. I wish I had purchased an all plexi/plastic one!

The one I use is similar to your design. Could you cut plexi?

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5 hours ago, NightLight said:

I bought a similar one from Etsy. Here are my thoughts. It will work for a while BUT wood is hard to clean and then it starts to warp.

The wood soap cutting tools including one from Asia all warped out on me. I wish I had purchased an all plexi/plastic one!

The one I use is similar to your design. Could you cut plexi?

Out of curiosity how thick is the wood from the one you got off Etsy and how thick  is the bow (like what is the distance from the outside of the frame to the inside of the frame along the open part) 

could  cut plexi but I would rather make the bow out of steel tubing or something far less, literally plastic, than plexi. Plexiglass would work fine IF it's thick enough. I used 3/4" plywood for my bow AND my original idea was to layer 2 sheets of 3/4 plywood face to face with some sort of impervious glue like a foaming polyurethane (Gorilla glue), or epoxy to handle the warping issue. The warping issue might also be solved by cutting metal plates to fit one or both faces. I dunno... I had to have something FAST to get rolling with though, so that's what I had on hand. The plywood should take awhile to warp though as I made it from MUCH thicker material with MUCH thicker top and arm bracing than any of the ones I saw commercially for sale. IF, (when) it DOES warp I can pull the cutting bow out and replace it with either a metal laminate version or a metal tube version without much trouble. (so this COULD be repaired/upgraded if needed.)


 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I put a bass guitar tuning machine just above the stainless steel bolt in the picture. It works perfectly. I don't know HOW the hell I survived this long hand cutting loaves of soap. I get a loaf done in MINUTES now and I don't have to do anything other than bevel. The beveling is only if I so choose, which I think I will not be choosing to do that in the future. The only reason I beveled in the first place is because I had to plane the bars flat from the inconsistent cuts I was making by hand cutting.

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That looks very similar to one I have that I purchased quite a long time ago.  It's still a great cutter though I don't use it often.  Mostly for specialty soaps for special orders.   My ex-husband made my first multi bar cutter out of wood and I got about 3 years out of it before it started warping pretty badly.  I ended up getting a metal one after that.  

 

You did a great job!!! 

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