₦airaland Forum

...after about three weeks, everything was done. So the plodder, crutcher/amalgamator, boiler and cutter were now ready. One may want to ask what these machines do.

The boiler is where the caustic and oil are mixed in the right proportion to form the soap.

The crutcher/amalgamator is where other ingredients are blended into the soap. The texture of the soap is also refined in the crutcher. The crutcher has an inbuilt dryer for drying the soap.

The plodder is where the soap is moulded into desired shape through extrusion via the die in the conical head. It has the hopper through which the soaps are charged into it. In the other end is the conical head which houses the die or eyelet. The shape and design of the die/eyelet is the shape and design the soap takes.

The cutting table, just like the name implies, is where the extruded soaps are cut into sizes.


picture 1: the crutcher/amalgamator after completion
picture 2: the boiler after completion.
picture 3: the new cutting table
picture 4: the plodder

Good morning.

the story continues...

Just like we did in the first phase of fabrication that saw us build the plodder, boiler and cutting table, we commenced the fabrication of the crutcher/amalgamator. Prior to this fabrication, I have been to some firms and discovered that it is more economical to have a manual cutting table. The first one we did was electrically driven. so while we fabricated the crutcher/amalgamator, we made provisions to get another cutting table, a manual one.


picture 1 and 2: Fabrication of the crutcher/amalgamator ongoing
picture 3: the crutcher/amalgamator almost completed
picture 4: the new cutting table almost completed

chimauga:
good day.. thanks for your good info but I will like to see the video also

the size of some of the video clips are big and I am finding it difficult to upload on YouTube here are links to the ones I uploaded...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lKRtw8okms

Mistymash:
My counselor and fabricator,Finally sir,pleased that you found the strength to do this so others can learn. I'm happy to have benefited from your advice's and also doing business with you.I remain humble sir. May the great knowledge and experiences shared here be a source of strength and encouragement to those who are truly yarning for it...To greater heights!

I am glad you are here to follow the gist. Your level of risking taking amazes me. You are strong and that will take you far. Thank you.

hmmm

welcome back

Franklyspeakin:
is your factory in umuahia i would love to put your product in my super market

Thank you so much. I am presently in Umuahia, but I don't have samples with me. But I wouldn't mind coming around to met you to discuss business. I can make my products available as soon as you want it. I will travel to my factory tomorrow(located in Isuikwuato) and get you samples by next tomorrow. But I wish if we can meet tomorrow. Can I have your contact please?

Christardor:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY...ihart

thank you

There is far more to these than i am writing here. This kind of project could be so demanding that you will begin to think of giving up even after you have invested so much. You really have to be TENACIOUS!!! It took me over two years to get to this point and i have not even gotten to the level i want. I am still pushing and pushing. One good thing about this kind of venture is that it offers you an opportunity to have your own work experience, especially if you are a fresh graduate. This you can squeeze into your CV. I remember getting a job in a soap firm simple because i was able to convince the interviewer that i have work experience in soap making. i was made the assistant production manager. Unfortunately for them my mission was not to come and work, i came to learn. after three days, i resigned. They were mad but they let me go. Me, i don grab wetin i want, take pictures, see their factory setup, take measurements, make contacts with the production manager and technicians. I can't "come and go" and work in a place where the salary cannot take care of my accommodation not to talk of feeding. I lodged in a hotel, got what i wanted in three days and left them in good fate. The essence of this story is to tell you that you can still use your soap skill to get a job if peraventure you couldn't continue with your own or you run yours on a small scale and the profit is not enough for you. If you know what you are doing very well, if a job says 5 years experience, you can apply even if you just have less than one year experience. What you need to do is to prove that you have an experience.


See below one of the pictures i took in a factory where i pretended to have come to work. I did this in over 4 firms, hahahahaha. God forgive me, i was just seeking for more experience. I never gets satisfied with learning, i can't really say i have learnt enough. So far as life keeps teaching, we should keep learning.

The amalgamator happens to be the most expensive. There are too many parts needed for this machine. The gear reducer is huge and heavy, you will need a derrick to be able to lift it. It uses a big electric motor, mine is 20HP but the least i saw why i was visiting firms was 30HP. The machine also has a blower which is the drier. To get the machine running, you also need big bearing, shaft, metal arms, metal plates, thick angle rods, couplers, etc. I managed to get them and brought them down to my factory as i was going to do this fabrication in my factory. I was done with the fabrication training, so i can do this.

Pictures of some of the parts at the factory before fabrication commenced.

... the plodder, cutting table and boiler are ready. I managed to take them down to my factory and test run them. they worked well and i was impressed. The next project was to get the amalgamator/crutcher. After about a year of hustling, i was able to raise some funds. Then i mapped out plans to fabricate the remaining machine.


Picture 1: picture of the plodder as i did the test run
Picture 2: pictures of soaps from the test run
Picture 3: ...sketches and calculations as i prepare for the amalgamator.
Picture 4: ...in the market to pick materials for the amalgamator.

QuitNotice:
Are you saying nafdac, especially, registration is not important at this early stage? Ain't their operatives disturbing you?

they are not disturbing me now but i hope to go for the registration as i progress.NAFDAC number does not affect soap sells as no one ask you if the soap has NAFDAC number before they buy. Do you ask for NAFDAC number when buying soap?

Omololu2121:
NAFDAC is a useless organization, just like the Nigerian police.

The number of fake cough syrup in the country now,go make you fear

I can attest to that. A lot of substandard drugs and harmful foods floods our market everyday.

You call 131kg lightweight? Me no even fit lift one bag of cement (50kg). This one na strong woman oh.


Meanwhile check out how i started a soap business https://www.nairaland.com/4442304/how-started-soap-making-business

Thank you

paulaspearz:
Happy birthday

...fabrication continued for some weeks. Cutting, machining, welding, fabrication was going on seriously. After about 6 weeks, everything have taken shape. Unfortunately we couldn't test the machines in the workshop but since we followed specifications, i believed everything will work fine.

I made arrangements and took the machines home.

Pictures: more cutting, machining, welding ongoing.

...what a beautiful morning. 10th April and today is my birthday.

...back to the workshop. All materials to start with are down. We began to make rough sketches, taking closer look at pictures and measurements. We started with the plodder because it seems to be the hardest of the three we were to fabricate. It has too many parts that will need a lot of lathe work and machining. We measured out the parts and cut them to our desired sizes.

Just like that we started fabrication.

Pictures coming soon...

Picture 1: one of various sketches we made
Picture 2: closer view of plodder barrel from a moribund firm
Picture 3: closer look on other parts of the plodder
Picture 4: taking measurements and cutting the metals to sizes

horia:
Ihart, can one person operate all the machines at once or would workers be needed at start?

while you can manage to operate the boiler and crutcher alone, you can't do same for the plodder. ...definitely you must need hands.

...I know some may begin to wonder how I was able to raise the little fund I started with. OK, this was how I did it. While I was on my pay job, I engaged in side hustles like conducting research protocols for university students, seminar and thesis writing. I also have a chemistry textbook I published immediately after my youth service. After we finished the first phase of fabrications, I went into full time research work and paint business. So these side businesses helped me to make little savings

pictures coming soon...

...we spent two days to get the necessary materials for the fabrication. The first day, I left for Aba to get electric motors, pulley, gear reducer and geared motor. I didn't just go to buy anyone in the market, we had specifications and I made sure I got those within our specifications. The second day we headed to Onitsha to buy metal plates, pipes, rods and angles. He volunteered his vehicle and I fueled it. I am so lucky, I must say. Things were really going easy per say.


picture 1: getting gears and motors at No 1, Port road, Aba.
picture 2: picking metal materials from Head bridge market, Onitsha.

leon1:
sir can I get your contact

kindly check my signature. Thanks

Splendblex:
Interesting....can one start without the machines and make it?

you can't start without machine/equipment.

kidman96:
Hello. My company, a courier company can help with the distribution of your products anywhere around Lagos.

unfortunately we are not in Lagos and currently we don't have the capacity to enter Lagos market .

...so i resigned. That was to be the hardest decision i have made. I felt it badly but i had to move on.

Few weeks later, i resumed my traing at his workshop. Unfortunately his brother didn't want to learn paint production again. He is now talking about something else. Imagine me, graduate don come down to learn welding and fabrication and an ssce dey feel too big. Well, he is a small boy and life haven't taught him any lesson. Well, the engr didn't bother much. My training continued as discussed with the hope that his brother will change his mind. unfortunately, He never did.

Later on we started discussing my machines and how it was going to be done. He asked me to get all the necessary parts and we work on them. We set out on another journey to visit soap firms to study their machines, take pictures and take measurments. Already, i had pictures and videos from youtube. We went round, visited some firm took pictures and measurements. We even visited some of his colleagues who have experience in soap equipment. I won't forget an Engr i met as we journeyed. He worked in the defunct RIVOK. He gave us the "engr drawing" of a plodder. He was not going to charge me much, I rallied round to buy some things. That was prior to Buhari's regime, things were really cheap as compared to today. The little money I had then could only get things for plodder, boiler and cutting table, so i got those stuffs.

picture 1: Training ongoing
picture 2: Visiting firms, taking pictures and measurements.
picture 3: Visiting other fabricators and checking out their work.
Picture 4: In the market picking some metal parts

...I continued with my business plan as i figured out how i was going to get my machines. Work was weighing me down and it was not paying well, so i decided to resign and pursue my dream. In my former place of work, we had this visiting engr. He is a artisan engr who has lots of working tools in his office (lathe, drill, among others). Even though they looked old, those machines do wonders. He fabricated spare parts for our machines,.. even parts i felt were foriegn he did them neatly. He has some expertise in fabrication, so I made out time to discuss my plans with him. That discussion was the begining of what turned out to be the soap factory we are discussing today. I told him i wanted to learn machine fabrication. He opted to teach me free if only i will teach his younger brother paint production. He complained a lot about his younger brother who wouldn't want to do anything. He was ready to fabricate paint mixer for his brother and empower him. I just jumped into the deal with my both leg. .

qleap2all:
Do you handle contract manufacturing?

Yes, you can contact me for further discussion...

heavenmade:
Can you fabricate 100kg/hr spray drying system?
What is the heating arrangement for your soap boiling kettle?

If I see the spray drier, i will be able to do it.

There is no heating arrangement for my soap boiler as i use hot caustic, but the boiler could be jacketed to use hot fluid or steam.

Where did we stop?

Ok, lets look at what informed the capacity i choose to start with.

I started making sketches on paper, which later turned out to be my business plan. While i was going round visiting soap firm, i noticed that this business is power consuming. You will need electricty to do this business effectively. I travelled down to my proposed location to examine the level of electricity there. I was so glad to see that they have a relative good supply of electricty, but they had challenges with their transformer. It seems the transformer have heavy load . My factory was going to add to the load, and i was afraid it may not work. So I had to decide to reduce the capacity of my proposed factory from 70kw to 40kw. With that in mind i split it for the machines as follows; Plodder-7.5HP to 10HP, boiler-5HP to 10HP, crutcher-20HP to 25HP, cutting table-2HP. ...and i also researched on the probable output capacity of the machines if they have my proposed energy consumption. If you add it up, it won't be above 40Kw (lets leave out the conversion from HP to KW). This one is not necessary but i must tell you, it informed my decision. You don't want put up a firm where you don't have electricity to power it. With that in mind, i proceeded to writing the business plan. I conducted a feasibility study which helped me to tidy my business plan. The feasibility study included a lot of paper work and market study which I may not be able to explain in details here.

motemi111:
Thanks bro, are the cartons new or re-used?

they have what they call virgin carton and those that are not virgin. Both are used cartons but virgin cartons don't have inscriptions written inside why non virgin have inscriptions written inside, like indomie cartons... If you bargain very strong you will get the virgin at the same price as the non virgin.

Mine are virgin cartons, take a closer look at the picture.

Richiez:
Did you brand the soap you produce? If yes, what are the challenges you've encountered so far regarding company registration, product trademark, NAFDAC, SON etc.

Also, did you rent the factory or you built the factory from the scratch? How much did it cost you to do this, get the machines and do all necessary registrations?

I'm seriously following this thread, i'm particularly interested in the discussion about your business plan. Although I have plans of going into production of something different (not soap), but I have no doubt I'll learn a lot from this thread.

Business registration was handled by a lawyer. NAFDAC and SON won't be a problem as I know how they are done. When the time comes I will do them too.

The factory is located in our garage, a garage built for two cars.

Just keep a date, we will x-ray the business plan bit by bit.

jidobaba:
Bookmarked.
Op, I'm interested in the figures. Without going into any detail, In all honesty, would you say that this is a lucrative venture?
What is the average ROI, running costs, manpower (for this your scale of #5million)?
Hard figures please, you can go into detail later.

being lucrative is relative. just relax and follow up, you will get hard figures when the time comes

motemi111:
Weldone boss, and more power to your elbow. Pls how much do you get those cartons and how much does it cost to print on them?

first you need what they call base. It is what they use for the printing. It is more or less like the stencil. It will cost between 2.5k to 3k. The carton cost #70 for one including the printing.