Paintbrush & Pencil Holder

For holding paintbrushes and/ or coloured pencils, e.g. aquarelle etc. in an art studio.

The holes for the brushes/ pencils are 7.5mm in diameter in the base and those in the upper shelves are 9mm. There is a front tray (Width: 215mm x Front-to-back: 45mm x Depth: 12mm) for odds & ends such as erasers, pencil stubs or other small artist's tools etc.

There are a couple of configuration options here, with a larger base with a tray in front, a smaller tray without, as well as two heights of pillars, where the shorter pencils are held in the front and the usually longer brushes held in the higher rack to the rear.

If both of the sections are to be joined as a single unit, the two assemblies can be glued together with cyanoacrylate/ superglue (CA) glue, being aligned and mated together using the two key slots at the flat, rear faces of each base section. (Since CA glue is the permanent option, there is an alternative, such as E6000 which gives a fairly strong bond but can be loosened ~IF~ the glueing is done neatly in the first place and the debonding is also done extremely carefully, should it prove necessary.)

I would suggest the two assemblies are placed flat with their rear faces towards each other and the two 'keys' (small rectangular pieces) being neatly pre-glued (and the glue cured!), one key into each slot in ~one~ of the two rear faces.

The opposite face to that with the keys in, is then coated with a thin bead/layer of CA glue, which must not touch the bottom corner of the face as it rests on the flat surface (otherwise the glued surface will likely stick to the flat surface being used for assembly, a make quite a mess!).

These two sections are then drawn together, bringing the mating faces into firm contact with each other.

Print Settings

Printer Brand:

Prusa

Printer:

I3 MK3S

Rafts:

No

Supports:

Yes

Resolution:

0.2mm

Infill:

15%

Filament: Generic PLA PLA White or colour to suit.

Notes:

When printing the support columns, it would be useful to test your printer's bridging capability with the short pillar x1 to see if this will work for you. Doing so will likely save about 0.5 of an hour per pair of pillars.

There are x1 and x2 choices of the appropriate sections, depending on how long you can print for, e.g.if there are cheaper electricity rates for periods of less than 6 hours available to the one printing, or if you have to keep an eye on your printer the whole time it is busy. (I usually print mine overnight when it is a long printing time as the electricity rates are also cheaper then.

Post-Printing

Screws required:

12x M3x16mm machine screws for the top sections.

12x M3x30mm machine screws for the bottom sections which are countersunk with a short counterbore.

• Either pozidrive/ philips head countersunk, or pan headed screws can thus be used.

(I used M3x16mm c'sunk for the tops and M3x30mm panhead for the bases.) The curve of the panhead can be flattened with a flat file before insertion, to then make them flush with the base of the holder.

The screws will be required to align and secure the pillars correctly - whether or not the pillars etc. are then glued in place, but I would suggest keeping the screws in place to maintain strength/ integrity of the assembly, as PLA is notorious for splitting/ delaminating when only glued surfaces are used, which are then placed under stress.

A nice finishing touch is to apply a set of self-adhesive flat rubber feet or a sheet of sticky-back felt/ 'Velbon' under the base to stop the assembly from sliding around on the table while in use.

Category: Art Tools