Paper Crimper

thingiverse

A versatile paper crimper designed with three distinct but non-interchangeable crimping heads. I printed the medium crimp bar to full size, and while it may require some adjustments, my small-scale test suggests they will work effectively. The shafts were printed at 100% infill, while the remaining parts of the crimp bar and other components feature 30% infill with three walls. To achieve super smooth results, you may need to trim or sand any excess material from the edges of the crimp bars. I intentionally designed this model to utilize proper ball bearings, but more information on that is provided below. The bottom section of the crimper is secured using four 4mm x 20mm machine screws. For the crank, I used a small sheet metal screw. There's a similar hole for a screw to keep the knob in place, but due to its tight fit, I didn't use one on my printout. This paper crimper works well with thin paper, but it struggles with copy paper, which causes it to bind tightly. Thicker paper may result in damage to the crank shaft or other components. Turning the bar directly without using the crank shaft is an option, although this may lead to premature wear and tear on the system. The choice of bearings played a significant role in determining the shaft sizes. Bearings with larger bore diameters can be quite expensive. If you're aware of any affordable and readily available bearings with 12-25mm bore diameters, I'd be willing to rework the design. In my case, I used inexpensive 608zz bearings sourced from Amazon for about $1 each. However, similar bearings at my local hardware store were priced around $10 each, making them a less desirable option. It's worth noting that these bearings are commonly used in skate board wheels. If you decide to create your own crimp bar, the medium crimp bar features a tooth radius of 18.4mm. The shafts measure 7.75 mm wide by 8mm on the short end and 23mm (13mm round, 10mm keyed) on the long end. The toothed section of the bar is approximately 175mm long.