At a dinner party a few months ago, the host asked if I could repair their go-kart, using my RepRap 3D Printer. Apparently the steering wheel had broken off and the Chinese supplier refused to supply only the steering wheel. I accepted the challenge, but did warn that PLA was not the ideal plastic for such a repair, being somewhat brittle.

I decided to approach the problem by removing all the broken plastic from the back of the steering wheel, and designing a new part to slot over the steering column nut and bolt onto the remains of the steering wheel.

Having designed the part, I posted it to Google+ for advice. Wildseyed Cabrer suggested that I do away with the buttresses of v1 and instead design a solid cylinder. Of particular interest was his suggestion to use pinholes around the nut hole, to force the slicing program to add reinforcement. Andreas Thorn reminded me to use the $fn = 6 for the chamfering of the nut hole, as I had for the nut hole itself. The Google+ 3D printing community really is amazing - thank you.

Unfortunately printing the item was much delayed by the fact that I did not have the precise measurements. As always I had designed the item to be fully parametric; so that the exact measurements didn’t matter until I came to print. Unfortunately the owners of the go-kart did not feel able to accurately take the measurement; so instead the go-kart had to be delivered to our house.

Having measured and printed the final part, I was delighted that it all worked first time. The only issue was that it was very difficult to turn the wheel and I was concerned that the part would not indeed be strong enough. I noticed that all four tyres were completely flat, so much so that the tyre profile was concave rather than convex. This was clearly putting a huge strain on the steering and may well have been a contributory factor in the original breakage. Having pumped up all the tyres the steering was very much easier.

The repair complete, the go-kart was delivered back to the owners. I have no idea whether the repair will last long enough to be worthwhile, but providing it lasts a reasonable time, it can of course be simply reprinted. We could also consider having it professionally printed in a stronger plastic.

• View design at FabFabbers

My daughter wanted a small windmill for a school project, and this was my very quick’n’dirty attempt.

For more information please:

• View it on GitHub

My daughter needed a small bridge for a school project and I couldn’t find anything suitable on-line. This was my very simple design, intended to be fully parametric, but probably only within certain limits.

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• View it on GitHub

Having bought an inflatable Avon Redcrest dinghy on eBay, I found that the pump no longer had a clip holding the two halves together. I knew that the older models used to have a piece of leather attached to one half with holes that clipped over screws on the other half, but on this pump only the screws remained.

Newer pumps instead came with a plastic clip that attached to the pump hose and clamped the two halves together and I felt that it would be quite simple to replicate and so it proved. This was a simple design exercise and worked perfectly first time. I have since re-sold the dinghy and hope that the pump clip is still serving its new owner.

For more information please:

• View it on GitHub

Finally got around to putting curtains up in our guest room and the curtain rings had been lost. They did eventually turn up, but these printed rings worked perfectly until we did. Yes they’re not pretty, but you really could not tell unless you got close.

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• View it on GitHub

My Westerly sailing boat has a rectangular-shaped shorepower socket and the faceplate was broken in half. Given its very exposed position in the cockpit, this is only to be expected, but purchasing a replacement proved very difficult. Fortunately the broken half had been kept by the previous owner, which enabled me to design an exact replica. And the beauty is that it will certainly be broken again, so I have printed a spare.

For more information please:

• View it on GitHub

My mother-in-law’s curtains were pulled down by a Great Dane, breaking many of the curtain hooks. They seemed to be an unusual design and she asked if I might be able to print them on my RepRap.

This was very satisfying design, which did not take long, posed no particular challenges and printed very quickly. If only all jobs were like that.

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• View it on GitHub

A friend saw a plastic bag carrier for sale and wondered if I could produce a 3D model suitable for printing. Here was the result. A simple handle with hooks to carry multiple bags at once.

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• View it on GitHub

My first ever design was a shock cord toggle, but I have only now had a reason to print it and I am pleased to say that they are working perfectly. Shown here on my dinghy

• used to hold the oars when not in use.

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• View it on GitHub

On my boat there was a locker below the cooker that was not closing properly. The problem was that the retaining clip was broken. Normally the only solution would be to buy a new clip, but this is the perfect use for a 3D printer, as it enables you to re-create just the broken half. And, even better, you can design the screw holes to be in the same place, enabling a super quick replacement.

For more information please see it on GitHub.

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I realise that I have made a number of posts on Google+, without posting first on my blog. This is the first of several posts that I will be making to correct that oversight…

Sailing boats typically have plastic or rubber cylindrical covers for the lower part of the shrouds and stays (the wires that hold up the mast). These covers are apparently called “Turnbuckle Boots”.

Turnbuckle boots should be topped off with caps, but it is quite common to see the caps broken or missing entirely.

Turnbuckle Boot Cap is a replacement for those caps. It is fully parametric and printed perfectly without support:

• View on GitHub

I was scraping the ice off my car yesterday and thought to myself that an ice-scraper was just the sort of thing that you ought to be able to print using a 3D printer. Surprisingly though, I could not find a single ice-scraper on Thingiverse.

This situation could not be allowed to continue a moment longer! 10 minutes later I had modelled a basic ice-scraper using OpenSCAD; although it was certainly no beauty.

60 minutes later and I had installed the MCAD library and was using “boxes.scad” to make the ice-scraper a little more rounded.

The resulting ice-scraper will certainly not win any design awards, but it was a fun project and I now know about the MCAD library, which will open a whole new world of functionality for me.

But the exciting thing for me is that a simple object like an ice-scraper can be designed in only a few minutes and, with a 3D printer, would be a reality only a short time later.

For more information please:

• Visit it on GitHub

I have just created my first OpenSCAD design - Bungee Cord Toggles. I don’t actually know if it will print, but will have to wait until my reprap is complete before trying.

For more information please:

• View it on GitHub