Just another weekend dusting off the 3D printer! This time making an adapter bracket to fix a seat onto a rowing machine, and a tiny little wingnut thingy to help a friend who needed one for their easel.

Rowing machine seat adapter

Some time ago I got a rowing machine off of freecycle.org, however as per usual freecycle shenanigans, the seat was missing. So it lived in my garage for the last couple of months whilst I figured out what to convert it to or how to reuse it.

Lo and behold I saw one of those sit-up trainers laying in the trash cycling home one day. I noticed that the headrest portion looked ideal for exactly that purpose! Long story short, made a two piece 3D printed adapter plate which adapts the hole pattern from one to the other, and now I have a functioning rowing machine!

Ab crunch machine found in the trash

Looked roughly like it would be able to be mounted on the trolley

CAD of a two layer adapter plate

Printing away

Finished and glued

Worked first time

Seat/headrest fitted and working great!

❮ ❯

Wingnut

My friend lost a wingnut that held together her easel, so whilst the 3D printer was still hot I made a small wingnut adapter thing which a nut can drop in. It kinda works, but obviously due to the layering and the shape of it its a bit fragile than I’d like and the wing broke whilst tightening… still works and it was a test for overhangs more than anything.

Solidworks to the rescue as always

Most aggressive overhangs I've printed so far

And away it goes!

Looks good, although those wings didnt print as rigidly as I wanted

And in the end one broke off, but it still did its job...

❮ ❯