Quote:
Originally Posted by dragoon500ly
Came across this in FM 21-76 "Survival"
To Make Soap
Extract grease from animal fat by cutting the fat into small pieces and cooking them in a pot. Add enough water to the pot to keep the fat from sticking as it cooks. Cook the fat slowly, stirring frequently. After the fat is rendered, pou the grease into a container to harden.
Plase wood ashes in a container with a spout near the bottom. Pour water over the ashes, and in a separate container collect the liquid that drips out of the spout. This liquid is the potash or lye. Another method for obtaining the lye is to pour the slurry (the mixture of ashes and water) through a straining cloth.
In a cooking pot, mix two parts grease to one part potash. Place this mixture over a fire and boil it untils it thickens.
After the mixture (the soap) cools, you can use it in the semiliquid state directly from the pot, or you can pour it into a pan, alow it to harden and then cut it into bars for later use.
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Few things to remember when attempting this.
1) Do NOT use aluminum pots or utensils!!!
2) READ MORE on the subject before you need to actually do anything such as this, then practice what you have read a couple of times. This is the basic principle, but there are things to do that if not done right can cause injury. If the lye is too strong it will make a soap that is very caustic, even burning the skin.
3) It needs to be stirred almost continiously until it thickens, then put it in what ever molds you have prepared for it. Don't leave it in the pot to set up!!
4) DO NOT USE ALUMINUM!!!
Basic camp soap for doing the dishes and cleaning is easy to make by adding wood ashes to the frying pan with some water. IT makes it's own soap, though I would not care to wash my body with it, it does clean the utensils quite well. Use sand for the abrassive helps it along too.
One of my favorite books is
Caveman Chemistry by Dunn. One of the projects in this book is making soap. I've attached the link to a free PDF of the book, which makes chemistry easy to read and understand for the layman. His 28 projects are also something to think of when thinking of rebuilding techology. IMO no library should be without it.
http://cavemanchemistry.com/cavedemo.pdf