Letterbox Handle

thingiverse

In front of our home stands a beautiful mailbox. One day, however, disaster struck as I carelessly dropped the key inside the lock, fortunately left open. Since then, we frequently find the door wide open, which isn't ideal. If rain pours down shortly after the mailman delivers the letters, we're greeted by an unwanted pool of water inside. This can't be good for the letters. Determined to fix the issue, I tried removing the lock but couldn't succeed. The vendors at my local hardware store were also unable to assist me in acquiring a new lock similar to the one on our mailbox, as they claim it's a custom item that needs to be specially ordered - which comes with no guarantee of a proper fit and incurs an excessive cost. It's even more economical to design it myself through 3D printing. This is why I'm taking on this project. It's straightforward: designing an object that will be wrapped around the right-hand side of the door to perform two essential tasks: - Provide a functional handle for opening and closing the door since we can no longer use the key - a feature that might have led to its accidental breaking - Keep the door securely shut due to an internal component separating it from the mailbox I've deemed it unnecessary for the door to be closed by means of the key, considering our neighborhood is peaceful with minimal occurrences of mail theft (a future project possibility remains). Design Process