18mm Garden Light Stake

thingiverse

Just what I needed, only the wrong size, so I tweaked it in Tinkercad to fit an 18mm hole. This is incredibly straightforward to do even for those who have never used Tinkercad before, and it's completely free to use. Measure the hole that the stake needs to slide into precisely if you can, but any effort is better than nothing - you may need to tweak several times to get a snug fit. Launch Tinkercad and create a cylinder with a diameter matching the hole you just measured. Import the stake STL file you want to resize and line them up end to end. Next, use the Align tool in Tinkercad to center both objects perfectly (see the picture with red arrows). This will give you a clear visual of how much larger or smaller you need to make the stake - its blunt end must match the cylinder's diameter exactly. Select the stake and then choose one of the diameter gadgets that appear on the selected item (see the picture with green arrow). While holding down the SHIFT key, left-click and drag the box to enlarge or shrink the part to match your cylinder, always keeping the SHIFT key pressed. This allows you to rescale the entire object rather than just one dimension. Once you're close, select both objects and use the Align tool again to realign them so you can see if any further adjustments are needed. If they are, simply repeat the steps above until you get a perfect match. Then export and print the part, do a test fit to see how it fits, and if necessary tweak it some more. May seem daunting at first, but it's ridiculously easy and very useful. I hope this helps someone!