Simple Rolling Spool Holder

thingiverse

I found many variations of rolling spindle holders with bearings - but most of them seemed more complicated than I thought was necessary or used excessive design and printed parts to avoid some simple hardware. I certainly appreciate the ingenuity of many of the existing available designs, I just thought this was a much more simple approach. #Print 1x Body 2x Nut (maybe more aptly named washer). I printed these with Pro PLA, but the parts are not subject to that much stress so I would suspect that nearly any filament will work. I printed the nuts solid (enough bottom layers to cover the height), and I used 5 walls, 15% gyroid infill for the body. Pay attention to the wall thickness where the bearing recesses are – I made sure that the walls were thick enough in these areas to be solid so they didn't compress when press fitting the bearing. You could likely tweak it to be much thinner and lighter if desired. #Hardware 1x 5/16 x 4-½ in bolt. (You may be able to get away with a 4in bolt, but a 4-½" bolt easily provides enough free thread). 2x 5/16 Fender Washers 2x 5/16 Nylock Nuts 2x 608 Skate Bearings (8mm x 22mm). #Assembly Press fit the bearings into the ends of the body. They should fit tight, but I was able to force them in by pressing them vertically on a workbench. Note which side has the deeper recess for the bearing. Thread the 5/16 bolt through the bearings, with the head of the bolt on the recessed side. Tighten 1 of the lock nuts on the non-recessed side. The bearing should further slide down on the recessed side until it seats at the bottom of the recess. You will need a ½" deep well socket to hold the head of the bolt while tightening the nut. Loosen the lock nut until the body spins freely on the bolt, but does not have excessive side-to-side play. Attach the body to the bracket with a [ fender washer - printed nut - bracket - printed nut - fender washer ] sandwich and tighten to the bracket with the 2nd nylock nut. You'll again need to use the ½" deep well socket to hold the head of the bolt while you tighten. #Other Considerations The standard skate bearings used are 8mm ID, but metric hardware in the states is typically more difficult to source and several times more expensive. A 5/16" bolt measures 7.9375mm, which for our purposes here is more than close enough. 8mm hardware should also work just fine if you have that available where you are. Bearings – I'm not entirely sure the bearings would be required. All but the highest quality bearings are probably going to act more like a bushing in this assembly, if the nylock nut isn't overly tight. This would make a reasonable candidate to remix with a simple printed bushing design that was calibrated to freely spin on the bolt. The threading of the bolt might dig into the plastic and cause some premature wear or resistance though. I had a bunch of skate bearings on hand, so I designed for and used those. #Buy Me a Beer If you find this useful and feel so inclined, https://paypal.me/slynn1324. Otherwise, simply enjoy.