The New Hotness

All of the plastic pads vanished from the legs of a steel shelf unit somewhere along the way:

Steel Shelving Foot Pads - post shape — Steel Shelving Foot Pads – post shape

Some solid modeling produced a suitable replacement shape:

Steel Shelving Foot Pads - no pegs - solid model — Steel Shelving Foot Pads – no pegs – solid model

A few prototypes (with a broken OEM version at lower left) matched the model to reality:

Steel Shelving Foot Pads - test pieces — Steel Shelving Foot Pads – test pieces

They’re natural & black TPU, because the job requirements include being tough and bendy:

Steel Shelving Foot Pads - installed — Steel Shelving Foot Pads – installed

Each one takes about half an hour to ooze from the Makergear M2, so after verifying the prototype’s fit, printing four at a time makes sense:

Steel Shelving Foot Pads - slicer — Steel Shelving Foot Pads – slicer

The OpenSCAD code includes the pegs in the original and the first chunky TPU version:

Steel Shelving Foot Pads - with pegs - solid model — Steel Shelving Foot Pads – with pegs – solid model

It turns out they don’t have any obvious benefit in a TPU pad, so they’re disabled in the code.

Now those legs sit firmly on the floor and the post tops aren’t nearly so threatening.

The OpenSCAD source code as a GitHub Gist:

	// Steel Shelf Foot Pads
	// Ed Nisley – KE4ZNU
	// 2026-04-18

	include <BOSL2/std.scad>

	/* [Hidden] */

	Protrusion = 0.01;

	NumSides = 4*9;
	$fn=NumSides;

	Clearance = 1.0/2;
	WallThick = 1.0 + Clearance;
	BaseThick = 2.0;

	PadOAH = BaseThick + 11.0;

	RollID = 6.4;
	RollOD = 7.4 + Clearance;
	RollOffset = 29.5;

	LegThick = 0.5 + 2*Clearance;


	Pins = [
	[-(RollOD/2), (RollOffset + RollOD/2),0],
	[(RollOffset + RollOD/2), -(RollOD/2),0],
	];

	//—–
	// Build things

	union() {
	difference() {
	union() {
	for (pin = Pins)
	translate(pin)
	cyl(PadOAH,d=RollOD + 2*WallThick,anchor=BOTTOM);

	translate([-(WallThick + LegThick),-(WallThick + LegThick),0])
	cuboid([2*WallThick + LegThick,WallThick + LegThick + Pins[0].y,PadOAH],
	anchor=BOTTOM+LEFT+FRONT);

	translate([-(WallThick + LegThick),-(WallThick + LegThick),0])
	cuboid([WallThick + LegThick + Pins[1].x,2*WallThick + LegThick,PadOAH],
	anchor=BOTTOM+LEFT+FRONT);

	cyl(PadOAH,r=(WallThick + LegThick),anchor=BOTTOM);
	}

	up(BaseThick)
	cyl(PadOAH,r=LegThick,anchor=BOTTOM);

	up(BaseThick)
	for (pin = Pins)
	translate(pin)
	cyl(PadOAH,d=RollOD,anchor=BOTTOM);

	up(BaseThick) {
	translate(Pins[0])
	cuboid([RollOD/2,RollOD/2,PadOAH],anchor=BOTTOM+LEFT+BACK);
	translate(Pins[1])
	cuboid([RollOD/2,RollOD/2,PadOAH],anchor=BOTTOM+RIGHT+FRONT);
	}

	up(BaseThick) {
	fwd(LegThick)
	cuboid([LegThick,Pins[0].y + LegThick,PadOAH],anchor=BOTTOM+RIGHT+FRONT);
	left(LegThick)
	cuboid([Pins[1].x + LegThick,LegThick,PadOAH],anchor=BOTTOM+LEFT+BACK);
	}


	}

	if (false)
	for (pin = Pins)
	translate(pin) {
	cyl(PadOAH,d=RollID/2,anchor=BOTTOM);
	for (a = [0,90])
	zrot(a)
	cuboid([1.0,RollID – 2*Clearance,PadOAH],anchor=BOTTOM);
	}

	}

view raw Steel Shelving Foot Pads.scad hosted with ❤ by GitHub