Hey! I'm Bob at I Like to Make Stuff
Today, we're going to use 3D printing to make custom sanding blocks
*Intro music*
First, let me say that these are inspired by an existing product sold by Lee Valley
I'm gonna link them down in the description. I'm not trying to take away business from them, at all
But when I saw these, I realized that they were a perfect candidate for a specific 3D printed part
You may be wondering why you would need these things
Well, a couple of reasons
One: If you 3D printed a part that had a very specific inside corner that you needed to sand
You could make the matching sander to fit, right in the 3D software
But even more generally in woodworking, if you have an inside curve or an inside corner of a specific angle
and you want to make a sander to match just that specific spot
This is the way you do it
The coolest part is that the modeling for this is extremely simple
In fact, you really only need to work in 2 dimensions
Let me show you how I did it
I started in Illustrator, but you can use anything that could create 2D graphics
like Inkscape. That's a free option
I just made one half of each one of the shapes that I wanted to make
and then mirrored them
So I made 3 different types of shapes, copied them, flipped them over horizontally
and then lined them up with the original shape
I removed the center lines so that combined down to a single outline
I made sure all of the holes were closed up, and it was a solid line
and then exported this file as an SVG file
I opened up Fusion and used the 'insert' tool to bring my SVG in as a sketch
From there, I grabbed all the sketch lines, and extruded them into a 3D shape, and it was ready to go
From here you can do anything you want to in the modeling software
but it really didn't need anything, so I sent it directly out as a STL file to my slicing software
and from there, sent it directly to the 3D printer
These printed very quickly, and all I had to do was cut off the raft that held it to the build plate
using a sharp knife
These are going to be wrapped with sandpaper, so you can use the lowest quality settings and make them print very quickly
After I got these cut off, I checked out the different shapes
and I think they're going to work out pretty well
You're going to want the sandpaper as tight as possible to the surface
so, if you can't pull it tightly with your hand, you can cover it in spray adhesive and push on the sandpaper on every surface
I did a couple of tests
so you can see exactly the imprint that each one of these leaves
This was the round-over
and this is the one with a little bit more of a point to it
These work extremely well, and the possibilities of shape are endless
Like I was saying before, these work great for woodworking
You can make them longer
You can make them taller
Or any shape that you want to work with the specific thing that you need to sand
But I also think that making sanding blocks for 3D printed parts is a super cool idea
Imagine that I took this in 3D modeling software, and I made this thing
but I wanted to be able to sand this specific area right here
With the model in this position, I can take another block insert it here, and cut away this shape
leaving just the negative space here
I could print that space out
and make a sander that fit just in that area
If you have a really complex 3D model that you need to sand some details in
that would be a fantastic way to be able to sand really precisely in a specific area
I would show you that, but I don't actually have any specific thing like that that I need to sand at the moment
and you get the general idea
The print time on these is actually really, really short
and it changes based on how thick you want them
and how solid you want the in-fill to be
You want it to have a little bit of in-fill because you are going to be pressing on it
and you're going to be squeezing it, so you don't want it to crush
But for me, I printed all of these in about 30 minutes
It didn't take very long
And with a short print time like that, it's no big deal to have a whole bunch of different variations of this
in your shop, ready to go, whenever you need them
I hope that was helpful! I'm just trying to give you guys some realistic ways to use 3D printing in your shops
whether it's woodworking, or prop making, or whatever else
I'd love to know what you think about this one, you can let me know down in the comments
I've got lots of other 3D printing and woodworking, and a bunch of other types of videos
So be sure to go check those out
Don't forget to subscribe!
That's it for this one guys! Thanks for watching!
I'll see you next time
