• Spring 2024 meetup in Calgary - tentative date Saturday, April 20/2024. Other regions are also discussing meet ups. If you want one in your area get going on organizing it! discussion
  • We are having email/registration problems again. Diagnosis is underway. New users sorry if you are having trouble getting registered. We are exploring different options to get registered. Contact the forum via another member or on facebook if you're stuck. Update -> we think it is fixed. Let us know if not.
  • Spring meet up in Ontario, April 6/2024. NEW LOCATION See Post #31 Discussion NEW LOCATION

Star knobs

Doggggboy

Ultra Member
Anyone have a preferred Thingiverse model for star knobs?
There are hundreds on Thingiverse and I'm not liking what I've tried so far.
Looking for 3/8 bolt style. Some of the models are parametric so the size wouldn't matter so much
 

kevin.decelles

Jack of all trades -- Master of none
Premium Member
Do you have a picture of one? I just designed what I called a star-knob for some bolts on my router table. I did them in fusion. I'm planning to expoy a bolt to the knob......
 

kevin.decelles

Jack of all trades -- Master of none
Premium Member
I hear ya. I based mine off the gorgeous knobs I got from lee valley. You may have to scale it out, it was meant for a smaller bolt


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 

Doggggboy

Ultra Member
50 mm width does the trick. I may make it a bit taller to recess the bolt head a bit more.
Even 10% infill seems sturdy but I'll probably bump that to 40 or 50% for the final print.
And , yeah, way cheaper. A four lobe 3/8-16 black phenolic knob at McMaster Carr is $3.35 USD. Material cost for me to print was 11 cents.
And more fun.
Thanks Kevin.
 

DavidR8

Scrap maker
Administrator
Moderator
Premium Member
50 mm width does the trick. I may make it a bit taller to recess the bolt head a bit more.
Even 10% infill seems sturdy but I'll probably bump that to 40 or 50% for the final print.
And , yeah, way cheaper. A four lobe 3/8-16 black phenolic knob at McMaster Carr is $3.35 USD. Material cost for me to print was 11 cents.
And more fun.
Thanks Kevin.
Can you post a pic?
 

Doggggboy

Ultra Member
It works fine.
I may make a hex capture hole for the bolt and make it a little deeper to hold some epoxy.
I don't use fusion yet. Too scared. But for what I do, Tinkercad does the trick most of the time.
 

PeterT

Ultra Member
Premium Member
Another option is to make the knob so it has a recess which fits the OD of the bolt head. But also a hex boss which engages the hex of the bolt head kind of like a mini integral allen wrench. That way the knob is fully engaging the bolt, both perpendicular and retained. No glue required. (There are actually commercial versions of this).
 

Doggggboy

Ultra Member
Another option is to make the knob so it has a recess which fits the OD of the bolt head. But also a hex boss which engages the hex of the bolt head kind of like a mini integral allen wrench. That way the knob is fully engaging the bolt, both perpendicular and retained. No glue required. (There are actually commercial versions of this).
I've tried a few models like that but nothing really made me happy. A lot of them are just a bit too sloppy. I know some of them can be resized a bit but I honestly didn't think finding one designed to fit a 3/8 bolt would be this hard
 

Tom O

Ultra Member
I made some T style locks like that and found after a while the captured bolt head rounds it out but you could put a thin nut on the other side so your actually get more support clamping it to itself.
 

Tomc938

Ultra Member
Premium Member
A couple of people here mentioned the learning curve on Fusion. I found the Youtube videos "Learn Fusion 360 or Die Trying" excellent. The presenter is a retired teacher, and he talks and walks you through from very basic - a box - to highly complex things like helical gears. I use Fusion all the time, and once you get about 6 lessons in you can quickly draft just about anything, and modify things from Thingiverse in minutes. I am not in any industry, just a regular Joe of average intelligence (I hope, anyway)

I highly recommend the series of you want to learn Fusion.
 
Top