3D Printing Archives - Brian Paonessa

3D Printed Sanding Blocks

3D Printing, Making Stuff, Painting No Responses »

Nov 232019

I tend to do a lot of sanding and the sanding blocks I have used are mostly clunky, especially when you what a perfectly flat surface. Most are designed to use 1/3 or 1/4 sheets of paper which are odd shapes to hold in the hand. And the ones for smaller or even different sizes tend to use custom (proprietary) sized sandpaper sheets which limits the grits and usually the quality of the paper you have available.

So Jess and I set off to create a more perfect design.

I needed something thin, comfortable, designed to work flat surfaces, use sheet sandpaper efficiently (no waste), no sharp edges to get caught and ABSOLUTELY must hold the sandpaper under tension (no slack).

We ended up with two profiles: Landscape (Long Version) and Portrait (Short Version).

Due to wanting a perfectly flat bottom and structurally needing bolts held in the body I ended up going with a 3-piece design.

: Body

: Bottom

: Top

The design uses 2, 1/4-20 bolts to hold the compression plate in place and apply tension on the sandpaper strip. Optionally you can use the Thumbscrew design (also a Jess Orignal) linked below to make disassembly more convenient.

Printing is done in 3 parts:
1) Bottom Plate – for a smooth sanding surface
2) Top “Compression” Plate – to tension the sandpaper and provide a comfortable grip
3) The body – which serves to hold the sandpaper in place under tension.

There are 6 designs in this set available separately.

1) 1-Inch sanding block “portrait” profile
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3968065

2, 3) 1.5-Inch sanding blocks “portrait” and “landscape” profiles
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3968088
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3968111

4, 5) 2-Inch sanding blocks “portrait” and “landscape” profiles
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3968118
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3968127

6) Thumbscrew “over-mold” for 1/4-20 nut
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3968028

Images (Paint and Prime)

Images (Finished Blocks)

3D Printed Modular Magnetic Wrench Holders

3D Printing, Making Stuff 1 Response »

Mar 032019

Continuing with the shop organization new years resolution today we are looking at a new design:

Modular Magnetic Wrench Organizers.

: SAE Drawer

: Metric Drawer

A few weeks ago Jess and embarked on a project that I had been wanting to do for a while ago. Years ago I sketched up an idea for a modular wrench organizer but at the time I did not have a 3D printer and making them out of materials available at the time proved to be troublesome. We started playing around with designs again. Jess having just worked on some bit holders to interface with a Dewalt case copied the double tapered friction connectors to this design and we started printing prototypes.

Wrenches come in many sizes and any given set I own has small thin and big and wide handled wrenches. Most of the holders we tracked down are simply one-size-fits-all which really didn’t work for me. From my late 80s craftsman sets to the Husky and Hazard Fraught full polish sets we ended up with a wide assortment of sizes to snuggly fit every wrench.

Lastly to complete the look we designed and printed end plates (front and back) to finish the sets with a clean look. I plan to eventually print these end plates in colors to identify SAE vs Metric, but for now, they are in separate drawers.

The individual wrench modules snap together with double taper interfaces and are secured in the drawer using two magnets per holder. For this set, we started with 8x8x3 disk magnets for the larger sizes and 10x5x3 for the smaller ones, but once I ran out of 8x8x3’s we made some alternative versions of the bigger sizes using the 10x5x3’s so both versions are included. And because I had a couple of finicky wrenches that didn’t sit quite right in the tapered holders there are a couple of oddball sizes included to make sure everything fit just right.

You can even assemble the “set” then print them all at once 🙂

Lastly to complete the set we also designed and printed 2 sizes of ignition wrench holders.

: Overview

: Dimensions

: Magnets

All files are published on Thingiverse here:

Description for Thingiverse:

This is the most ridiculous modular wrench holders set with 16 sizes to snuggly fit every wrench I have. Unless you also have crazy OCD and need every size to fit perfectly you can probably get away with just printing the medium and large. There is a correct holder for everything from tiny full polish 6mm to 80s craftsman chunky 1-Inch box wrenches and everything in-between.

Most of the wrench holders I’ve seen are either one-size-fits-all or fixed wrench count neither of which worked for me.

The individual wrench modules snap together with double taper interfaces so you can fit a set of two or 32. Get a new wrench just separate the rack, insert a new holder, and snap it back together. The rack is secured in the drawer using two magnets per holder so they do not slide around even if the drawer is slammed shut.

For this set, we started with 8x8x3 disk magnets for the larger sizes and 10x5x3 for the smaller ones, but once I ran out of 8x8x3’s we made some alternative versions of the bigger sizes using the 10x5x3’s so both versions are included.

Lastly to complete the look we designed and printed end plates (front and back) to finish the sets with a clean look.

Screwdriver Organization Racks (Precision and Standard Drivers)

3D Printing, Making Stuff No Responses »

Mar 032019

Back to the toolbox cleanup again.

This time Screwdriver holders to keep them pesky rolling all over the place drivers inline.

Originally I thought I would be using the modular wrench racks to hold the screwdrivers but Jess and I worked hard to get all the extra space out of them so the wrenches would fit snuggly and frankly the screwdrivers didn’t fit. We started with the ignition wrench holders and made some modifications for precision screwdrivers and just scaled up to build the standard driver sets.

We ended up with a few designs to accommodate all the different sizes of screwdrivers. Since I wanted to keep like drivers together we once again made a modular design using magnets to keep them in place and hold onto the drivers.

The precision screwdriver files consist of 3, 4-slot files (bottom width of 2mm, 3mm, 4mm) and 1, 6-slot file. All accept 12x12x2 disk magnets press it in place.

: Overview

The standard screwdriver sets consist of all 4 driver racks XS, S, M, L, and LX. The XS (extra small) fit a set of husky small drivers and the LX (extra large) is for HFs 6 in 1 screwdriver which I use a lot. 80% of my old USA made craftsman and Husky drivers fit nicely in the Medium and Large size. These accept 20x10x4 bar magnets press fit. These big magnets are overkill, but work well to hold everything firmly in place.

It’s worth noting these are not the high level of finish we usually apply to a project. This was a quick and dirty fix for a problem.

All files are published on Thingiverse here:

Harbor Freight 15 and 20 Bin Storage Box IMPROVED Replacement Bins

3D Printing, Making Stuff No Responses »

Jan 062019

For years I would start a project and need to stop and run out for hardware. Worst yet, more times then not I knew I had the bolt or screw, just couldn’t find it. My hardware was in a mix of cardboard boxes and drawers, poorly sorted, all over the place. Something needed to be done.

We’ve all probably drooled over Adam Savage’s Sortimo bin racks and wish we have something similar for hardware… No? Just me? OK well, when I first saw his setup I was sold.

Being a poor mofo, Sortimo was not an option but Harbor Freight has a suitable poor-mans alternative the only problem is they have a total of 3 bin sizes. With the new 3D printer I figure I can resolve the fix this problem once and for all.

To start we downloaded all of the designs others did and tested them out. They either didn’t fit well, or only fits some slots, or better yet were to freaking thin they were destined to fall apart with nuts and bolts in them. Plus it like no one thought though printing…supports under the boxes to support the registration tabs. Eh, I just didn’t like them.

Jess and I worked together and designed bins that worked for all the situations we could think of. It took a bunch of revisions and printing nearly a 1kg of filament to get it right. But I think we got it.