It’s been two years since we bought our first 3D printer–a Prusa MK3, based upon a friend’s recommendation–and we learned very early on that one of the joys of having a 3D printer is that you can just make stuff. Stuff you need, stuff you might spend several hours vainly scouring the interwebs hoping you’ll find something that might do what you want it to do (and sometimes you get lucky and find the dingus you want), but you end up frustrated and annoyed by said dingus’ failure to exist. If you have a 3D printer and a basic grasp of how to use it, instead of being tired and frustrated, you end up enthused and ecstatic over the incredibly random, yet useful, things you can craft. Here are some stellar examples from Purgatory.
We bought a lamp for the guest room a few years ago–nice enough, but the shades were glass. Not only were they fragile, they were heavy, and the gooseneck arms didn’t always stay in position, making the entire lamp top-heavy. Of course, as I was painting the guest room, the lamp fell over, shattering two of the shades.
I spent a great deal of time trying to find replacement shades–probably close to 3 hours total–and never did find anything remotely useful. Agent Smith then stepped in and designed and printed a very pretty alternative. Not only did it fit perfectly, it is very lightweight. The gooseneck arm no longer sags or twists under the weight of the shade, instead staying in whatever position it is set. He then got busy and printed off four more shades, some in the original white and some in a bright yellow. The result is not only pretty; it makes the floor lamp far more functional than it was originally.
But wait, there’s more! There are eight windows in the boys’ space–two fixed transom windows across the top, three fixed picture windows in the middle, and three awning-style windows at floor level. A few years back I stopped opening the bottom windows as any airflow from them, even in hot weather, was marginal, and I squirreled away the screens since they only ended up full of spiders. Once I installed the three blinds that covered the fixed windows and the lower ones however, a problem developed–the blinds would often get hung up on the crank handles for the bottom windows.
Enter the 3D printer. In just an hour’s time, we had three nice little white plastic covers to fit over the bits to which the handles normally attach. Problem solved.
In addition to cranks and lampshades, there is, of course, as detailed previously on this site, the little stega lamp that is made up of lights I found in the clearance bin at Target, for which Agent Smith designed and printed a stand to hold them all together.
Speaking of home decor, we’ve used the 3D printer to augment a variety of decorating projects, such as hanging some round mirrors more securely in the great room.
Another super cool project was crafting a mirror for the foyer, when once again I couldn’t find anything online. (Extra special bonus: the mirror is the same color as the great room walls!)
More on how the above project was done in the next post, but here are more examples of things we’ve printed. The pics below show how we’ve repurposed the soap pump holes in the sinks in the kitchen and allow us to use the space for other things. We have countertop soap pumps at the main kitchen and laundry sinks, while the butler pantry sink has a wine aerator. Pretty cool repurposing, seeing that the pumps originally in those spots weren’t the best quality, thanks to the POs’ penchant for cost-cutting.
Lastly, I’m super proud of the fact that, while most everything in this post was crafted by Agent Smith, the last two examples were things I designed and printed, as I am now gaining confidence with CAD software and using our Prusas–notice that’s plural, because we recently picked up another one of their offerings. The new one does smaller/finer details and I’m looking forward to using it.
Of course this isn’t the full list of everything we’ve used the printers to make. Agent Smith’s list is incredibly long, including race car bits, random mounting brackets, small things to go into other things, etc etc etc….
Addendum: almost totally forgot the one 3D-printed doodad we use every single day and makes life infinitely better:
What is it you ask? It’s a simple little plug that fits into the holder that keeps the faucet sprayer in place. The interior grippy bit with the holder deteriorated, so Agent Smith whipped up a super quick replacement. Now instead of the sprayer fitting into the dingus, the latch to keep the sprayer “on” can now be used to hang the sprayer on the white nub jutting out of the holder.