Rattle Shim Wedges

thingiverse

Have you ever stuffed paper napkins, toothpicks and other things between panels or trim in cars to try to stop rattles, squeaks and other noises? I admit it, I've done that until I could get around to padding or tightening the offending item properly (where it is even possible). Recently, I had a persistent dashboard rattle caused by a tiny gap between a cover panel and the instrument cluster which there's no way to tighten. So I designed a family of shim wedges and used two of them to solve the issue. It worked perfectly. Due to the design of those particular car parts, it would be very time-consuming to disassemble and pad them. Therefore, these shims are likely to become permanent parts of the car. It has since occurred to me that there were other places they could be useful (such as a buzzing rear compartment cover on our refrigerator or a cover on a computer case). And just last weekend (10 November 2019), I used one of them to stop a rattling panel on our clothes dryer. I print up fresh batches of these from time to time and always find new uses for them. They have tiny serrations on the top surface to help retain them and finger tabs for easy removal if needed. Note - I'm adding variants as I need them. For example, a thicker one and also one with side ribs that will deform to act as retainers (if you print them from a softer material such as ABS). I hope you may find them useful. P.S.- These work great for stopping the plastic trim panel at the exterior base of many windshields from rattling. They get dry and stiff from exposure to sun and weather, and may begin to creak or rattle. Just put a few of these between the edge of the panel and the glass.