Category: Family

Charger

Cars were my father’s one true obsession. He could take a single look at any car and regale you with information about it. What engine it came with from the factory, what options were available, who famously drove one, what races it participated in, quirks of its engineering or design. My dad loved cars. Car magazines? If one was published, he was a subscriber. When YouTube came along he would share numbers car-related videos with us over dinner – kindly, but forcefully in his excitement. 

Every year, for as long as I can remember, we would go to the big car show in downtown St. Louis. Where all the manufacturers – and later only a few – would show off their latest concepts and models. Easter car show in Forest Park. Every year. Sundays as a kid at the local dealer looking over what they had in stock. No nosey salesmen to bother you! Every Friday, from Spring to Fall we’d be at the local classic car show. He’d stop and look at every car. No hyperbole. 

I humored him as I didn’t get to spend enough time with him as a young man and enjoyed his company. As I got older and into car culture myself I found my own favorites and additions to the “If I win the lottery” wishlist. I also started bringing along my camera. Much to his chagrin I was more interested in taking close up photos of the details of the car. The ornaments, the badges, the chrome, the gauges. He always wanted me to take a wide shot of the whole car. 

He passed on the first of this year and when car season came around I wasn’t sure I’d want to go again. Finally, in July with the long holiday weekend I decided to go once more. One last walk around the parking lot. Smelling of exhaust and too-rich mixtures of gasoline. Of oil. Oldies – or popular music to my dad’s generation – on full volume. Cars of every color and shape.

I took this picture of a late 60s early 70s Dodge Charger. Lit by the fading sun. A well-cared-for specimen that my dad would have told me all about. 

Fujifilm X100VI f4.0, 1/1000, 125 ISO (Auto) Light crop and edits to RAW file for exposure and color.1

A short story about a drawer slider bracket, 3D printing, and the internet

Among my numerous hobbies is 3-D printing. My wife bought me my first “put-it-together-yourself” kit back in 2016. Since then I’ve upgraded to a Bambu Lab X1, which is as close to a home appliance as 3D printing has ever been. It literally has never failed me short of my own errors.

Recently, my mom called me up to tell me that multiple drawers in her kitchen cabinets were broken. The rails the drawer slides along had fallen down, and the drawers were no longer horizontally level. Her husband took one apart and found that the bracket that holds the rail to the back of the cabinet had broken.

She looked online to see if she could find a replacement part, but was unsuccessful. Knowing I have a 3D printer, she asked if I could print a replacement. Always eager for a fun challenge (and because I’m a good son), I said sure.

Before I started measuring and modeling the part, I took a look online myself to see if I could find replacement parts. Sure enough, there were other people were having the same difficulty sourcing a replacement part.

So I started measuring and preparing a model.

A few minutes into doing this I thought, “Wait a second, I wonder if someone else has come up with the same solution and already made a model?”. Guess what? Someone had!

In 2017 bmonnin created and uploaded their model for others to use. They had the same problem my mom had!

“I had several brackets that support the drawer slider on my kitchen cabinet drawers break. After looking around at several different big boxes and online I couldn’t find the same bracket anywhere.

So I got to printing.

A few minutes later, a solid replacement for the part was born.

I printed it in red because red makes it go faster

There is a slight, almost imperceptible, difference between the original and the model. The lip that holds the rail in place is on both the top and bottom in the original. Assumedly so the manufacturer could print one mold and flip it for either side of the drawer. bmonnin’s model only has the lip on one side. They provided a mirrored version though, so all is well!

Since my mom needed more than one, I set up the X1 to print enough for all her drawers.

A few hours later, and less than half a spool of filament, I was done.

The next time I saw my mom, I handed a box of brackets off to her and Ken. A few days later she shared these photos.

Huzzah! A resounding success. I hope they last as long as the old ones (26 years, since the house was built).

🙂

This is one of those mundane, but also incredibly interconnected, stories where technology – combined with the social aspects of being able to share information easily and freely – come together to create a tangible solution to a problem. A small problem in this instance, but I think an example of how even larger problems can be solved when we think and work together.