Silicone mold making for soap

For a school project I had to make a soap that would have my project's logo on it.


This instructable was made by a DIN 2012 member

Step 1: Making the logo

To make the mold, you need to make a plastic model of what you want the soap to look like. This model will be cast into silicone which will be the actual mold so you don't have to flip the side of the logo.

To make the logo, I used a laser cutting machine. You have to have a version of the logo on Illustrator. I had to simplifie the logo. The silicon will take every little detail, but the soap is not as permissive.

Make the logo 5% bigger than what you want to obtain. The silicone doesn't shrink much, but the soap does.

I used a sheet of cast acrylic for this part of the model.

Once cleaned, you should obtain something like this.

Comments

[rimar2000]

Very interesting. One question: you do this to make money, or just for fun?

I ask because I do not know if from the economic point of view I should buy soap to made it into shape. I made soap from used cooking oil, and it was very smelly, too much to use it.

[rpelletier]

Only for fun (or school actually). I'd have to sell a big quantity to make any money, but i don't intend to.

[stringstretcher]

Great! Silicone mold making is fun! Good instructions, but read step 4 again. Near the end you say the "Once cured, the resin is not dangerous..." What resin? You mean the silicone, I think. Make that change and you have a great instructable! where did you get your logo made? Did you have access to a laser machine or did you have it made from an online service? Looks neat.

[rpelletier]

Thank for the advice! I've made the modifications. English is not my first language so those kind of comments are much appreciated.

About the logo, I had the chance to have acces to a laser machine at school, so i could experiment. You could make it online from a company, but i could be complicated as, in this case, you have 3 different depth of marking and a cut.

If i had not acces to the service at school, there would be a few alternatives. You could for example cut it by hand in a 1/32in polystyrene sheet and glue any number of levels together or even print it with a ZBuilder prototyping machine.

In any case you have to be careful because most paint or putty you apply on you model could react with the silicone so you must use a technique that does not require that kind of finishing.