Libove Blog

Personal Blog about anything - mostly programming, cooking and random thoughts

3D Printed Toy Screws

After seeing how I put a child barrier together my daughter is obsessed with screws. She will try to turn any screw she can find, using any item barely resembling a screwdriver. Naturally, she got her own set of tools :).

A Block with 2 screws. In front of it lie a toy screwdriver and wrench

As the set didn't include any screws I've decided to print some for her. The screws are compatible with the wrench and screwdriver of the "klein Bosch Work-Box". The holes of the block are loose enough to easily screw in the bolts.

I've used Blender to create these. For my first try I've created my own screw using the "Screw" modifier applied to a triangle. This worked okay, but the resulting screw was too loose and would just slip into the hole. For the next try I used the plugin "Bolt Factory" to create the screw part and only kept my previously designed head.

Things I've learned:

  • A 6-vertices circle with 18mm circumference is not the same as a 18mm screw head. The "18mm" refers to the distance between to edges, not two vertices.
  • 3D printed screw holes need a lot more "room". Simply scaling by the X and Y axis worked for my "triangle screw" but not the generated screw. Instead I had to thicken and thin the bands of the screw.

How to modify a screw to be used as a hole

All files can be used under the CC-BY 4.0 License.