Giraffe-headed paper-towel holder

A simple paper-towel holder with a screw-on giraffe head

Print Settings

Printer:

Heavily modded Craftbot

Rafts:

No

Supports:

Yes

Resolution:

0.15 mm

Infill:

Minimal

Notes:

Print in any filament you are comfortable with to make good-looking prints.
The two cylindrical parts you can print with no supports and a large layer resolution.

The tricky one is the head. There, use a small resolution (0.15 mm at most) and orient with the screw downward. Use plenty of supports with support interface. Print slowly and with cooling.

Post-Printing

Assembly

You have to glue the two cylinders together to make the final holder (they are too big to be printed in one piece on a regular printer). Use any glue that suits the material (superglue is rather universal, polyester for extra strength with PETG and PLA).

Mounting

The holder can be used standalone in an upright orientation, but is designed to be attached to a wall like the picture shows.
The best way to do it is with mounting glue (usually named "fix all" or "total fix" or something similar), it comes in same tubes as silicone and you apply it with a gun. You simply apply a few tracks of it on the back side of the holder and stick the holder to the wall. It is sticky enough to keep it there with no additional means. After a few hours it is solid and the holder can be used.

How I Designed This

• I designed the holder in Fusion 3 using simple sketch and extrude techniques as a full cylinder.
• I made a small short 20 x 5 mm cylinder and modelled a thread on it to create a screw for the head. The crucial thing is to select the coarsest possible thread (M20x2 in my case) and then to scale the screw in longitudinal direction by a factor of 2 or 3, giving you 10 or 15 mm final length. This gives you a nice smooth screw that is easy to print and screw together.
• I made a copy of the screw I just made and scaled it to be about 0,3 mm wider. I subtracted this screw from the holder cylinder, creating the female thread.
• Then I modelled a simple plinth on the first screw to put the giraffe head on.
• I imported the STL of the giraffe and split the head from the body. I deleted the body and posititioned and scaled the head to fit on the plinth.
• Now I had to turn off the history tracking in Fusion, so I could transform the plinth with the screw to a mesh and then combine them with the head.

Category: Kitchen & Dining