Toilet Seat Rehab Kit

thingiverse

The discerning bathroom (aka restroom aka loo) sometimes employs a wooden toilet seat. They're solid, durable and a natural material, so they both last a long time and look good. After a decade or two they can be in need of a little rehabilitation. The main failures seem to be the plastic bumper pieces. These degrade and become brittle and can disintegrate or gradually deform and cause the dreaded wobbly toilet seat syndrome. So it's 3Dprinting to the rescue. There are a few other toilet seat bumpers on Thingiverse, but I elected to start from scratch for mine, as they are simply shapes and I figured I'd need to play with peg spacing, size and style anyway. This is a set of the parts I needed to rehab my half-bath aka "powder room" toilet seat. It's interesting how every country has its own words for the toilet rooms. You're seeing Canadian-centric names here with an attempt to catch searches from other locales. The parts are: - Under-seat bumpers. These are spacers that hold the seat off the ceramic rim of the toilet, and carry the weight of a seated occupant. **These have two posts at a spacing of 38mm, with friction-fit posts of just over 5mm diameter.** See below about barb vs ridges style posts. - Lid bumpers. These are on the lid, and cushion the closure of the lid over the seat, and act also as spacers between the lid and the seat. This part has a barbed post of **just over 5.2mm** for a friction fit in the lid holes. - bolt washers. These are washers that go with the nut on the underside of the toilet-bowl rear, where the seat is bolted to the ceramic body. *I recommend* that you use a strong PLA with improved moisture resistance for the under-seat bumpers. There are PLA+ filaments on the market that purport to offer these characteristics. They print at slightly hotter temperatures. Also, consider flexible TPU filament for the lid bumpers and the washers. The resilient material offers a quieter closure on the lid, and gives a bit of conformance on the nut tightening. The bumpers are held in place by friction. There is a hole of about 5mm in the wood, and the posts on the part push into the hole and fit snugly. They're always under compression, so this works fine. I have two styles of friction fit posts, one that is barbed and one that is ridged. I tried both, and they were both fine, with the barbs being a little tighter and harder to remove after inserting. Pick what you like most. It's conceivable that there are some seats out there with different hole-sizes and spacings. You'd need to pull the STL file into a design tool to adjust in that situation. Finally, remember to check your parts often - I have no idea how long these will last in the application. There's water and nasty contaminants nearby, obv, so that may degrade them more quickly than the factory set. Don't know. **Hint:** While you have the seat removed, and the bumpers off, it's a good chance to sand and refinish with a polyurethane finish. Soak the brass fittings in some white vinegar for a bit, and rub with fine steel wool.