Late to the party (May of 2025), I took the plunge and got a Bambu P1S. It seemed like hobby grade 3D printers had matured such that they could be useful tools for making things instead of a novelty gadget to hack, wrench, and solder on. I had been burned by this promise a decade earlier, but costs had come down substantially ($800 vs $2500 and even lower now) and I wanted to believe. Fortunately, the promise held true and I’ve been having a lot more fun than I expected.
Some people think that 3D printing is all hype, others will tell you it is the future of manufacturing, while others say it is only good for prototyping. There is truth to all of those points of view, but they’re also all wrong in other ways.
For me, the great thing about 3D printing is that it allows me to make things to solve niche problems in my life (or the lives of those around me). These are problems so specific that there is no viable market for someone to design, manufacture, and sell a product that solves the problem. 3D printing changes the economics of solving these problems in a profound way.
I’ve become a bit evangelistic about 3D printing. I’ll keep it short: if you’re an engineer, you should have a 3D printer at home - having access to one at work doesn’t count.
Here are some of the things I’ve designed and printed to solve problems in my life. Many of these are so hyper-specific that I can’t imagine that anyone else will ever need these files. So why share them? Well, it gives me joy and maybe it will inspire someone down the road to solve a problem in their life.
Baking Prints
My wife is an avid baker who seems to be the prime beneficiary of my 3D printing. Each year, she participates in the Great British Bake Off Bake Along - where home bakers attempt the technical challenge from the show each week. Between Bake Off and her other baking projects, there is an endless stream of things to be printed.
Baking Sheet Rack Foot
I purchased a rack for half sheet pans for my wife. It came with casters, but we didn’t want to use them in our setting. So I printed some feet for the extruded aluminum legs in TPU to protect the floor. Note that the flange is not equal on all four sides - this corresponds to some C-channel reinforcement around the legs where the casters bolted on.
Downloads: STL | Fusion 360
Custom Cookie Cutter
I’ve heard the rule (paraphrased) that “If you have to do something a third time, you should make a tool”. This works for wood working, machining, software, etc.
Well, lets just say that I’ve had to make more than three custom sized circle cookie cutters. I’ve often used OpenVSP because it makes the job easy. I finally decided to make a tool to make it even easier.
OpenVSP has a Custom Component capability so users can write a script to make their own shapes with their own parameters. It is a great feature - that pretty much nobody ever uses. And I must admit, I’ve never used it myself - when I want a new feature in an OpenVSP component, I just add it to the C++ and then everybody gets the upgrade.
Downloads: OpenVSP | OpenVSP Airshow
Doughnut Cutter
In Season 16, the ‘bread week’ technical challenge was Doughnuts (are doughnuts really bread?). A stock biscuit cutter would have sufficed, but the ones in the drawer were not quite the right size (inch vs. metric), so I was asked to print a solution. I was leaning towards suggesting she make do with close enough when I realized that many of the contestants’ doughnuts suffered from off-center holes that resulted in non-uniform doughnuts with uneven bakes. Clearly a custom doughnut cutter that would enforce concentricity was the solution.
Downloads: STL | Fusion 360
Plug Cutter
Before I made the [Custom Cookie Cutter](projects/3Dprinting/Custom Cookie Cutter), GBBO had a recipe (which the contestants were not provided) that called for a 2cm hole to be cut 2.5cm into a bunch of little cakes. The void would later be filled with jam. She was worried about making the holes to the appropriate depth, so here is a a 2cm plug cutter with a 2.5cm built-in depth gauge.
Dough Divider
My wife’s bagel game is on point. However, she found that portioning the dough into balls before shaping was tedious and error prone. Each ball had to be weighed and small bits cut off or added on until it was within tolerance. I had recently made her a butter press (on the mill, not 3D printed) from a Harbor Freight arbor press, so she asked if I could make her a dough divider for her arbor press. This works with an 8" cake pan. You press the dough into an even layer in the pan, give a quick press, and you get a dozen uniform portions for bagels, rolls, pretzels, breadsticks, etc.
Downloads: STL | Fusion 360
Pie Stamps
One Thanksgiving, my sister in law made both pumpkin and sweet potato pies with a top crust. She asked me to make these stamps to make sure the pies were marked to ensure everyone got the pie they wanted. Although I find both pumpkin and sweet potato objectionable, I was willing to help out.
Downloads: STL
Rondo 503 Front Panel
My wife has a Rondo 503 dough sheeter (Croissant anyone?). For the uninitiated, a dough sheeter is an industrial power tool version of a rolling pin. We got it used, with a busted up front panel that I set out to replace with a 3D print.
According to FilamentColors, the best match for the Rondo is Gizmo Dorks orange PLA. It isn’t a perfect match, but it is pretty close.
This print is a bit tricky. You don’t want to print downward facing rounds, but the best orientation for the fillets causes most of the print to be an overhang. I solved this by designing my own support (instead of automatic support). Print the supports as solid objects with 5% infill and no top layers. Print the lid with solid infill as the orange filament is translucent enough that it doesn’t look good otherwise. This print will want to warp, but I was able to get it to stay flat using a high temperature plate and glue stick.
Downloads: STL | Fusion 360
Household and Kitchen Prints
Headphone Hook
My headphones chronically fall off my desk next to my computer. There is a whiteboard next to my seat that is mounted to the wall via standoffs. I threw together this print to give me a convenient place to put my headphones.
Downloads: STL | Fusion 360
Knife Block
We recently purchased a new set of knives. This set came with an 11" carving knife. Unfortunately, our existing knife block could not accommodate an 11" knife - and it turns out that you can’t buy a knife block that will. So I designed this custom knife block to suit our set, including the 11" carver.
This prints in three pieces to avoid any overhangs and make efficient use of material. Ours is red and black. The Fusion files ended up a hot mess, so you only get the STL here. The base maxes out my 10" build volume in height and width. You’ll need to glue steel shot, rocks, or sand into the point of the base as a counterweight.
Downloads: STL
VIZIO Remote Soft Case
In my household, the TV remote control (VIZIO XRT136) gets dropped. A lot. The back pops off, the batteries scatter, and after enough drops, the remote stops working and has to be replaced. You can buy protective cases for cell phones, but not for TV remotes.
I actually designed this case (and the fixtures) in OpenVSP. It was a bit over the top, but I find Fusion’s controls for lofting and other organic 3D surfaces to be intolerable. Although modeling the shape of the remote itself in OpenVSP was relatively straightforward, tricking it into performing the Boolean operations required to form all the parts required some gymnastics that are not recommended. I’ve included the OpenVSP file, but if you want to print this, go straight to the STL.
The case prints in flexible TPU. Each half prints vertically to avoid needing supports. It is too tall and flexible to print in one piece this way, but I found that print quality was acceptable when split in two halves.
These halves must be bonded together. I solvent welded them using THF; this is nasty stuff, so be careful. I printed the fixtures in PLA to hold it all together through the process. I covered the fixtures in clear packing tape so they wouldn’t get glued to the case. I don’t know if it helped or not.
Drawer Insert
There is an awkward gap at the back of our kitchen drawer behind the silverware organizer. Space was wasted, things that fell back there were lost forever, and the organizer could slide around the drawer. I designed this insert to perfectly fill the gap and solve all these problems. There is a small radius on the interior corners to make removing small items easy. It is too big to print in one piece, so I split it in two and printed the halves vertically as towers.
Downloads: STL | Fusion 360
Spoon Tray
One segment of our OXO silverware organizer was a catch all for unusual spoons. It held long iced tea spoons, tiny tea spoons, and sporks I made to match our silverware set. This led to total chaos. I designed this tray to fit perfectly in the OXO organizer and to bring order to the motley crew of spoons.
Downloads: STL | Fusion 360
Fan Handle
One benefit of living on the Central Coast of California is that we can keep our bedroom window open at night for most of the year. Sometimes on still nights, we place a cheap Lasko box fan in the window. Sometimes the box fan would fall out of the window with a clatter that would disturb, wake, and upset everyone (me, my wife, and the dog). If you manage to sleep through the fan crashing, you won’t sleep through the dog and the wife’s reactions.
I designed this handle with a U-bracket to fit around the bottom of the window and keep the fan from falling out. The rest of the design was unnecessarily complex, but I wanted to go through the exercise of making the replacement handle match the factory handle as closely as possible - not just the dimensions and interface where it clips to the fan, but the overall shape, form and aesthetic. This prints in six pieces to avoid overhangs and so each piece prints in the best orientation for the strength considering the loads that will be on that part of the design. I assembled with super glue, but that was probably not necessary.
Downloads: STL | Fusion 360
Plastulette
My friend Russ turned us on to the Servspoon, a small vintage stainless steel utensil that is super handy. Being stainless, it unfortunately isn’t compatible with some pots and pans. We wanted a nonstick safe version and 3D printing seemed the way to go. The Servspoon has a couple of bends in it. Rather than print this with the bends, I printed it flat and then droop-thermoformed it over a mold made from some scrap stainless sheet. I also milled a bevel into the leading edge. This was printed in PC to withstand dishwasher temperatures, but unfortunately it will not withstand cooking temperatures.
Downloads: STL
Other Prints
Kia 2024 EV9 Key Fob Button
We love our 2024 Kia EV9, but the remote key fob has a ton of buttons and lacks physical features that make it easy to register in your hand. In middle age, my lifelong myopia has been joined by presbyopia. Whenever I needed to lock or unlock the car, I found myself fumbling with the remote, taking off my glasses, and struggling to read the engraved icons on the buttons just inches from my face - almost always in the dark.
I took apart the key fob and reverse engineered the lock button. I designed a replacement that is just a little taller, so it sits proud of the fob and provides registration in your hand. I can now lock and unlock the car effortlessly without even taking the key out of my pocket.
I’ve had success printing this in PLA with a 0.4mm nozzle and standard layer heights. I tried building a lock icon into the face, but it was too small to print with the 0.4mm nozzle. When I get a 0.2mm nozzle, I will probably try again.
Downloads: STL | Fusion 360
Apple Keyboard Stand
When I replaced my old Apple keyboard, the new one no longer had a riser at the back setting the keys at a comfortable height and angle. This is a common problem and many similar stands exist on the 3D model sharing sites. I tried a few, but they each had problems. I combined design aspects of several to come up with one that works for me. It clips on and isn’t too tall or too short.
Downloads: STL | Fusion 360
TouchDRO Case
I have a TouchDRO kit for my mill. I was one of the first to buy the new board and Yuri did not have a case available at the time. When I followed up later, the only case he had was for a later revision of the board. I made this case to match the style Yuri was providing at the time (laser cut plastic sheet). It has the advantage that all the pieces print flat, but it is a hassle to assemble and if I were doing it again, I would probably do it very differently.
Downloads: STL | Fusion 360
RIGID Shop Vac Adapter
Long ago, the shop vac hose got chewed up by the dog. Sworn enemies, she saw her opportunity and she took it; I can’t really blame her. While you can buy replacement hoses and accessories, it didn’t seem cost effective to buy a $50 hose for a $100 vacuum - and I didn’t want to throw out an otherwise perfectly good tool. So for years, I shoved the hose and its accessories together with duct tape. It wasn’t pretty. There are many shop vac accessories on the 3D model sharing sites, but they all assume that the rest of your vacuum anatomy is intact. This is more of a prosthesis for the hose to restore the interface to all those accessories. Unsurprisingly, I designed this in OpenVSP