Sometimes, you end up doing something you didn’t know you had an interest in doing and you become obsessed with it. Such is my now near addiction to empty filament spools. I’m not at the point where I want to buy filament just to print models for empty spools, but I feel myself drawing close.

I compiled a collection of empty filament spools ideas in my last post. Later, I made a video of the top ten ideas (my opinion only). As you can see from this post, I have made one of the models from the top ten, Spool Tree House by Loaders. I suppose it is to be expected that the Founder of a home décor and furniture ecommerce business, would select a house model to print first. What’s next from the top ten? I estimate it will take a few months to have enough spools for the next empty spool project. I will post it when it’s completed.

Model Modifications

Bark was added to the trunk using Blender 3d. It is a little pixilated; however, I prefer it to the fuzzy skin offered by Cura’s slicer for this part of the model.

I created a roof and sliced it with Cura, using the fuzzy skin option.

Pins for holding the swivel drawers in place were made by extending, cutting, and flattening Ikea curtain hooks. I drilled holes in the spool where needed and bent the metal rods after putting them into position.

Room Furniture

Outdoor

My plans are to make furniture for each room. I consider them to be rooms with balconies, which is why my first printed furniture was a patio chair set. I calculated the size in relation to the height of the room. Width and depth measurements will not correspond exactly to life-sized furniture. The rooms are 67 mm high. Wall heights for life-sized rooms are usually 9 feet or 108 inches. Life-sized height for the chair type I chose is 36 inches. The equation for the miniature chair was 67/X = 108/36 (67 x 36 divided by 108 =X (22.3 mm).

Stereolithography files are available for the chair and table on PrusaPrinters.

Interior

I adapted Piggie’s set by scaling to parts to .518 m in Blender 3d. Measurements were further adjusted along the X and Y axes to fit spool rooms. Furniture legs were modeled smaller than needed, dipped in regular Elmer’s glue, and secured to the chair and couch. The cushions and lamp slid off their respective spots easily, so I secured them with double stick tape.

All parts were printed in Push Plastic’s Chavant Brown at 204 degrees Celsius on a Prusa MK3s+ 3d printer. The lamp and leg parts require a brim and should be printed at .1 layer height. I combined them in the files I published on PrusaPrinters.