I wanted to easily pick out my sewing thread and its matching bobbin, but it was hard to keep my threads standing in my storage box.
So I decided to model an insert for my nice made-in-Japan Daiso box to organise my threads.
This is only my third ever 3D printing project, but here’s how I made it:
3D Modeling
I started with a base Cube just big enough to fit at the bottom of the storage box. The height was made to be 2mm.
Next, I planned out where the spool holders will be, using the Sketch tool on the top surface of the base cube:
- 100m thread spools are about 19mm in diameter;
- The inside diameter of the spools are a smidge over 6mm;
- I want to store a matching bobbin on top of each thread spool;
So the spool holders will be:
- 22mm apart (enough space for fingers to pull spools out);
- 6mm at the base and about 5mm at the top (for easy insertion);
- 66mm high to fit a bobbin on top of each thread spool;
Using the Press Pull tool, the 6mm circles were extruded for 66mm and tapered at -0.5degrees so that the top of the spool holder “stalagmites” would be about 5mm in diameter.
Finally, I used Insert SVG, then Emboss at -1mm to deboss my logo just for fun 😀
And it was ready for slicing!
Slicing & Printing
I had eSun’s eTPU-95a loaded in the 3D printer. This is a bit of a squishy material so we’ll see how it goes.
The infill was set to 10%, which meant the base was solid but the spool holder cylinders were empty. 🤔 ETA was 4h23m on Draft mode.
Wow, I didn’t expect this to be so flexible – like a soft phone case! The stalagmites were very wobbly towards the end, but it still managed to print ’til the end. The spider web will be pulled off.
Now, will my threads fit?
The organised thread box
The answer was, yes! 😆
The thread organiser works really well; and I love that the matching bobbins can be stored on top!
The pros of the flexible material is that it’s quiet when you shake the box… but considering its wobbliness while printing, I might use a rigid plastic filament next time and increase the infill so the pillars have some support on the inside.
“Next time” being an organiser for my bigger serging threads 😀
Update: All organiser dividers printed 😊 For the bigger spools I made a simple linear divider so more spools fit as the thread get used and become smaller.
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