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Lye from soap to bio fuel to Crystal meth, LYE (KOH, potassium hydroxide) Has a 1001 uses. And it is soooooo easy to make you could almost do it by accident !
Here's what you need

FIRE!
WATER!
WOOD!
3 PLASTIC  BUCKETS

Step 1: Step One: Apply Fire To Wood

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   First thing you need to do is burn some wood, No pine only hardwoods, Apple  and fruit trees is the best.
   Now after burning that wood collect the ashes in a big 5 gal plastic bucket make sure the coal are not hot and melt through the bucket.
 Fill the bucket about half way should be enough.

 


Step 2: Step Two: There's holes in your bucket

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  Take one of the plastic buckets drill some small holes into the bottom, then take some flat rocks cover the bottom of the bucket, then on top of those rocks add a layer of gravel.
 


Step 3: Step Three: Just Add Water

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Take the empty bucket this should be the biggest bucket,label it  LYE so no one tries to use it. 
Take the bucket with rocks and holes and put that in the other one. Fill it with the wood ashes.
  Now just add water, this must be soft water or distilled water, the best to use is rain water.

Step 4: Step Four: Your Lye is Done

 That's it!  Once the water drains through the ashes filling the bottom bucket with LYE water, To increase the acidity of the lye, take the water and pour it through the bucket again and again.
   You can test the acidity with a PH meter make sure it goes from 1.0 - 14.0  14 is the PH level for making soap.
   Old ways of telling if you lye was ready for soap making was it could dissolve a chicken feather, or if a egg is placed in water it would float above the water like a bobber.
    Or you could boil it, DO THIS OUT DOORS!

taluntain says: Jun 24, 2012. 1:22 AM
i thought lye was a powder
CanfieldsFarm (author) in reply to taluntainJun 27, 2012. 7:14 AM
there are 2 kinds of lye, your talking about store bought Red Devil lye.
this is how they used to make lye this is also called potash.
davide2 says: Apr 14, 2010. 2:39 PM
hi! lately i'm interested in soapmaking, made my first batch few days ago. i looked for some info about homemade lye and apparently nobody could tell a scientific method to decide when the lye is ready. can you confirm the ph must be 14? how did you get that info?
thanks
CanfieldsFarm (author) in reply to davide2Dec 19, 2011. 1:47 PM
I got a small battery operated ph meter there cheap and accurate
sorry it took so long to reply
karonv in reply to davide2Apr 18, 2010. 8:40 AM
David you made Lye? As far as everything I've read there isnt a lot of scientific on this because it was done many years ago when they didnt have access to Red Devil Lye lol. They say that if you float an egg in your lye it slould be level not too high or too low, but floating with about 25% of the egg above water/lye/ Hope it helps why you  using homemade lye you can buy it for 6.00? I have a great melt and poor on Etsy karonv
hope this helps
CanfieldsFarm (author) in reply to davide2Apr 14, 2010. 8:10 PM
well 12-14 14 recommended,  If you need to increase the PH reduce the lye water. 
davide2 in reply to CanfieldsFarmApr 15, 2010. 6:24 AM
thanks for the answer. another thing: there is plenty of NaOH tables for soapmaking, what about KOH? anybody knows in which percentage i'm gonna use homemade lye? i'm afraid it's trial and error.
CanfieldsFarm (author) in reply to davide2Apr 15, 2010. 1:35 PM
This is what i am doing making soap using LYE water, almost all the recipes i have seen have lye and water so i just combine those 2 numbers and use the straight lye water, Also pouring lye water through a coffee filter wil remove teh brow color, use 3 layers of them.
Bill_the_Baker says: Aug 30, 2011. 11:28 AM
Making Lye with Wood Ash is fun to do, but if your ever in a hurry or just dont feel like making it yourself visit www.essentialdepot.com their lye is pure food grade caustic soda (another name for lye)!\
Irwan2 says: Oct 24, 2010. 5:14 AM
Thank you for your instructables. Helps me a lot since I can't easily find lye in my country here. Thanks again.
redcore4 says: Aug 29, 2010. 8:12 PM
lye is alkaline; you can't increase its acidity by making it stronger. as it is an alkali, pouring the water through the bucket will increase its alkalinity (or its strength if you'd prefer to think of it that way) not its acidity (acidity actually decreases as you make it stronger). other than this, great work!
CanfieldsFarm (author) says: Apr 15, 2010. 1:32 PM
http://www.millersoap.com/phtome.html
A web site with a lot of info about PH testing soap
lemonie says: Apr 12, 2010. 11:01 AM
This isn't sodium hydroxide though, it'll be mostly potassium hydroxide.

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CanfieldsFarm (author) in reply to lemonieApr 13, 2010. 9:04 AM
(removed by author or community request)
lemonie in reply to CanfieldsFarmApr 13, 2010. 10:47 AM
My OED defines Lye as "water that has been made alkaline by lixiviation of vegetable ashes", which is this, and secondly "any strong alkaline solution...". So it can apply to both.

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Tool Using Animal in reply to lemonieApr 12, 2010. 11:40 AM
Hey I came here to say that!

Also you're increasing the alkalinity.......
CanfieldsFarm (author) in reply to Tool Using AnimalApr 13, 2010. 9:04 AM
your right i fix ed it
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