The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

The New Hotness

  • Bike Rack Tray Holder: Small Version

    Mary wanted to haul seedlings started in half-gallon milk bottles to their destination and I figured they shouldn’t slide around while being transported:

    Milk bottle seedling starter carrier
    Milk bottle seedling starter carrier

    That’s a half-width drawer from the same salvaged collection that produced the Bike Rack Tray Holder and a few minutes with LightBurn adapted the wider cardboard bike rack mount to fit the narrower drawer:

    Bike Rack Tray Holder - small - LightBurn layout
    Bike Rack Tray Holder – small – LightBurn layout

    Basically, use Node Edit to delete the horizontal lines, move the sides inward by half the difference of the drawer widths, then draw a few short lines to close the gaps.

    Hot-melt gluing four layers of cardboard with crossed corrugations, plus three flat bottom layers, got it done:

    Bike Rack Tray Holder - small drawer - installed
    Bike Rack Tray Holder – small drawer – installed

    Those are the same stretchy TPU straps, with an additional link on each rear chain to compensate for the slightly higher block mount and a slightly narrower front block to fit in the slightly narrower drawer handle:

    Bike Rack Tray Holder - half-width drawer straps
    Bike Rack Tray Holder – half-width drawer straps

    Of course, the only way to know what didn’t fit was to make a pair of the original ones, try them on for size, then adapt the OpenSCAD code accordingly.

    That was surprisingly easy …