Teach Soap

Hi, All! This may seem like a daft question, but has anyone discovered a seriously quick and easy way of cutting blocks of M&P into cubes? I think my right arm's about to fall off; I've cut up 10 kilos of the stuff, it's taken hours, and there must be an easier way!

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Tired? Depressed? Sick of the weather? Talk to your doctor about the benefits of Chardonnay ...

I personally cheat. I have silicone molds that keep my bars consistent and keep me from killing myself.

When I do loafs, however, I use a wood mold. It requires lining it with wax paper, but they have an area for a special cutting knife and such (or at least mine does). It makes cutting much easier, imo.

No ... not the finished soap, but the 'raw' base. x

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Tired? Depressed? Sick of the weather? Talk to your doctor about the benefits of Chardonnay ...

You can try a heat knife; the kind that's used to cut blocks of wax.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Does it make it easier? Still sounds like an awful lot of cutting!

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Tired? Depressed? Sick of the weather? Talk to your doctor about the benefits of Chardonnay ...

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

I don't think you are really going to find a way to avoid cutting M&P. You may also want to try some really sharp knives. I cut my M&P with one of our kitchen Cutco knives. I would never do this finished soap, but with normal M&P, it shouldn't be an issue. Using a dull knife though really does make it a pain.

I live in the UK, a company over here overs the bases grated, ready to be melted, I think it's a great idea, although it does take up a lot of storage space.

Hel x

So if they offer them grated that means it is possible to do this... so if you have a salad shooter could the base be put through that? I keep watching for one at the thrift store but have not gotten lucky- yet.
Has someone tried this?

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Susie
Sometimes A Mistake is so much fun, You just have to do it again!

I did once, but I found it to be more work than it was worth. I usually save the shredding for doing designs in soap just because it is just soooo time consuming. A salad shredder may work, as long as it is not mechanical in any way. Lettuce is finer than the soap itself, so the soap could easily dull your blades or put too much stress on the motor. The knives that are used to professionally shred the soap are probably much sharper AND get replaced fairly regularly by the manufacture since it is technically only a bit more precision than cutting the actual blocks you get from your wholesaler. If you decide to go with the salad shredder, make sure you read your manual first.

I use a thumping great 12-inch chef's knife, with a hand pushing down on the tip as well as on the handle - works jut fine, but yeah, gets a bit old after cutting up 15 pounds... Heating up the blade under scalding water (then wiped dry) definitely helps. I am tempted to suggest trying an automatic bread slicer, like you'd use in a professional bakery, but that'd be a spendy experiment. I've been eyeing a double-handled cheese knife, too.

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Please visit my Etsy shop!

Has anyone tried a food processor with a chip/fry slicing blade? I reckon the time cleaning the FP would be easier and far quicker than slicing it all by hand. There are also 'potato chippers' (here in the UK) - anyone tried one of those?

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Tired? Depressed? Sick of the weather? Talk to your doctor about the benefits of Chardonnay ...

I just had the craziest idea while I was working. How about a brownie cutter? I'm not sure what their official name is but they are designed to cut up brownies on a huge tin. Many bakeries use them and you can find them in the bakery area pretty cheap. I would think with the size of them you could cut up a huge thing of M&P with that....

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

I've seen nicer ones than this at places like Wal-Mart and KOHLS, but its kinda the same idea. I'm not sure if it really would work. With the handles, you may be able to cute lot of M&P at once. They make them in different sizes for the people who are too lazy to cut their own brownies...for soap though, it may work. I never even considered it until now.