A guy shared his experience on 3D modeling and printing spare door handles for cabinets and other furniture. It’s a useful tip when something similar happens to your house furnishings.
His folks just moved from out-of-state. Naturally, a few things got broken in transit, including the cabinet door handles for a simple storage unit.
There was nothing appropriate in the right size at the local hardware stores. These have holes 5″ apart, which seems to be larger than average.
This is a great example of the simple and practical use of 3D printing. It didn’t take long to design or print, and looks great!
The originals were of a circular section, which can be difficult to print. I designed a slightly different section that would print on its side without any support material. Note the use of a ‘driven’ dimension, just to manually ensure that the angle with the build surface will be at least 45°.
The body is generated with a single sweep operation.
The threads were too fine to print, so I modeled holes and tapped them afterward. Tapping plastic is a tedious process. You must withdraw the tap and clear the chips about every 3mm. While I’m always skeptical of plastic threads, these seem to be holding up quite well so far.
Further proof that 3D printing is not just for cereal box toys anymore!
