Stacking Tray Sewing Pattern Weights for Pennies

Here in the US, if you need to weigh something down, pennies are the best bang for your 1/100th of a buck. Let's take advantage of this to make some beautiful, multifunctional pattern weights for cheap – it's just common cents.

(Yes, I know there is uncertainty about the future of the penny in the US. For now, though, there are still plenty to go around!)

Okay, they're cheap. What else? Like many other pattern weights, these stack. Unlike others, they also function as small trays! Keep needles, pins, bobbins, and other small notions tidy as you work.

You can customize the heft of each pattern weight depending on how many pennies you put in. The size I like is pre-rendered for you, or you can use the easy-to-customize OpenSCAD source file to make a model fitted to your exact needs. The pre-rendered one uses 48 pennies.

Printing the weights

Filament: Pretty much whatever you want. Pick something pleasing to look at.

Print settings: As coarse as you can get without under-extrusion (within reason, I designed this with a 0.4mm nozzle in mind). Tolerances are quite loose for the coins. They are somewhat tighter for the lid, but it's easy to trim down the lid if it's too tight a fit.

How to print: Print one base and one matching lid per weight.

How to assemble: Fill the base with your desired quantity of pennies, then press the lid into place. The lid can be removed by turning the weight upside-down and smacking it into your palm a couple of times. The lid can also be removed by dropping it on the floor, but this tends to spray pennies everywhere.

Tip: If you don't like pennies spraying everywhere, use dabs of hot glue to secure the lid. Hot glue is easily reversible with isopropyl alcohol, so you can retrieve your pennies at need without harming the pennies or the weight.

What about other countries' coins? Other sizes? Other weights?

The source OpenSCAD file is written to accept other values for coin size and weight, so it's very easy to plug in numbers for any coinage and generate what you need. (Note: You will need the BOSL2 library). If you don't want to do that yourself, leave me a note in the comments with the coins and weight you'd like, and I'll be happy to generate it for you.