FFF 3D Printing Custom Woodworking Tools
Woodworking and FFF additive manufacturing always felt like a match made in heaven. Jigs and fixtures are some of the best uses for additive manufactured products, and creating a printable jig that I could use for my home shop was ideal. A Pack and Go of the assembly can be downloaded here.
Going into the project, I had worried about the threads, but they work marvelously when printed in a polycarbonate blend. The real challenge became getting the dovetails to work sufficiently well!
The first iteration was decidedly less graceful (pictures below), but I learned a great deal of important elements:
Being able to use multiple smaller clamps is better than one huge clamp
Long threaded sections are much more fragile than expected
It is easier to have a single threaded section than two threaded sections to maintain alignment.
Before vaccinations became widely available during the COVID-19 pandemic, I had been focusing on leaving the house as little as possible for errands, and unfortunately this included Harbor Freight for my home projects. I needed some better clamping devices, and I decided to try to make a 3D printable 90 degree clamp to help with some woodworking glue-ups.
