Why Buy It When You Can Print It? A DIY Nation Has a Fix for Broken Doodads

Leaning over a steaming pile of waste in his Iowa backyard, Travis Roggatz felt a snap. The tabs securing the scooper part of his brand new pooper scooper had broken.

Roggatz, 35, dutifully got to work ridding his grass of the gifts from his dogs, Django and Scout, with a plastic bag pinched between his fingers. But he wasn’t ready to toss his $30 scooping contraption quite yet, so he used his 3-D printer to create a custom replacement part.

“I just print it out this morning and fix it back up and it works completely perfect,” says Roggatz, a drawing inspector for a construction company, adding that the device is now stronger than before.

Roggatz is part of a growing army of hobbyists turning to 3-D printers for extremely practical purposes. Firing up machines in their own homes or at local libraries and maker spaces, they are printing door locks, furniture hinges, storage containers and appliance parts.

By opting for their own construction, fans say they can avoid the hassle and cost of tracking down sometimes obscure items.

Here are some tips on how to get started:

Kory Miller’s 3-D printer is essentially his on-demand hardware store. He started with a $100 machine, making trinkets like Christmas ornaments and puzzles, but has since upgraded to more expensive printers for conquering a range of home repairs.

When a release lever on his sofa broke, Miller’s first instinct was to check Amazon.com for a spare part. But instead of forking over $30 for the piece of plastic, he spent a few cents on filament and cranked out a custom solution. The makeshift lever is still functional four years later.

Miller, a 41-year-old design technician for a steel company in Linn, Mo., also made a protective cap for the sharp end of his garage push broom. No more half-gripping the handle while making rounds around the dusty concrete.

“It’s been fun fixing minor annoyances,” he says.

Though Miller has a background in professional drafting, he first checks free digital design repositories for premade templates. If he doesn’t find anything or doesn’t like what’s available, he will draw up his own design.

That is how Chris Adcock, 54, solved a kitchen quandary. When his pricey stand mixer lost its control knob, Adcock went searching for a printable fix—and a model to work from. He downloaded a template someone else had created, sent it to his printer and stuck the new part on the mixer. The repair cost him pennies, much less than what the appliance manufacturer would have charged, he says.

Adcock also creates and builds many of his own designs, including a set of entryway hooks with a built-in shelf for glasses, a hot air exhaust vent for his air conditioner and a clamp to hold material in place when assembling cabinets and other furniture. He suggests others who want to go beyond templates start by experimenting with computer-aided design software from companies such as Tinkercad, which is free.

As for the machine, when you’re ready to graduate from your local library’s model, North Carolina-based Adcock recommends splurging on a brand such as Bambu Lab (he has the P2S model, which can run as much as $800). More budget-friendly models from Bambu, Creality and Elegoo cost around $200.

Printing is iterative, and more complex designs might require several rounds of revisions.

Different materials, including liquid resin and filaments, are suited for different jobs. One guide suggests beginners start with polylactic acid filament, a generally nontoxic material made primarily of cornstarch or sugar cane.

Then comes the structure, shape and size. Dan Miller, a 43-year-old software developer in Raleigh, N.C., found the banana hooks he made to hang under his cabinet weren’t strong enough to support certain loads.

While fixing the plastic connectors on his washing machine struts, which are like suspension rods for the appliance, he first printed a test part and then made adjustments before printing the rest. He’s mindful of wasting filament, but small parts don’t tend to generate too much scrap.

Sandy Ginther uses a 3-D printer to make custom fixtures that keep clutter at bay.

The operations superintendent in Saskatchewan, Canada, keeps a running list of items he wants to create. So far, his greatest hits include a belt holder and an under-sink towel organizer. “As silly as that is, it’s one of those little things we use every day,” he says of the towel rig.

Sure, he could pick up similar products at the local retailer, but they can be flimsy and ill-fitting, says Ginther, 32. His custom-built cutlery bins, meanwhile, are exactly proportional to the length of his spoons and knives.

Mat Swanigan, 37, designed a custom lock for a set of french doors his dog kept ramming into. Four iterations later and the contraption is sturdy enough to withstand the full force of Lenny, an 8-year-old Labrador mix.

The small-business owner in Chesterfield, Mich., takes pride in the creative process.

“I think it’s kind of cool when I see stuff around the house and I’m like, ‘Yeah, I printed that. I made that.’ ”