Adapting the BEST Woodworking Joints for 3D Printing

[@mattmiller07]

I like how you added more of your Fusion workflow in this video as well as engineering principles. As a Fusion amateur, I appreciate this and would like to see more of that in the future. Keep up the great work.

[@NeedItMakeIt]

I would have done this a while back, I thought that fusion had become paid for everyone... turns out it was just me! I figured with it being paid, that it would be less popular. I'll be including some fusion with every video that deals with design. I have whole bunch of ideas for interesting and useful topics that could help people to get the results they're looking for. I'll be working on improving my presentation method as well so it's clearer and more concise as well as packed with info... that's the goal at least. Thanks for your kind words, I really appreciate it!

[@mattmiller07]

You are doing great work. You're a great teacher and communicator. As an engineer wannabe, I learn a lot from the way you think, test and iterate. Your channel is fantastic. Keep going

[@TheGlitchyCorgi]

Do yourself a favor and learn...... anything else. Fusion (and the business practices around) are basically trash compared to any other professional CAD program. Most paid CAD programs are on roughly the same price schedule and don't nickel and dime you to death; if you want something free, Onshape is completely free as long as you don't mind your designs being opensource

[@NeedItMakeIt]

@@TheGlitchyCorgi It depends on what you're trying to do. If you want to work with meshes a lot, Fusion isn't great, it get bogged down, Blender is best for that type of work. If you want to do mostly engineering calculations, Fusion can be used, but it's going to be expensive for that module. For 3D printing type designs, Fusion is a good program that can do just about everything you need. my understanding is that it is free for personal use still, correct me if I'm wrong. I have to pay about 30US a month for mine since it has been deemed not for personal use.

[@TheGlitchyCorgi]

@@NeedItMakeIt My statement applies when compared to other engineering CAD programs. Virtually the only people that use it are the ones that learned it in college when it was free and never tried anything else, and they suffer because of it

[@Rebar77_real]

Step 1: have your printer dialed in! Interesting joinery!

[@martinsmith2948]

so true my friend

[@NeedItMakeIt]

Calibration for these is important, the material has a bit of give to it, so it's going to go together, I just prefer not to have to use a hammer or vise. The Q1 Pro and the X1C are both my go-to printers to give me the best results with the least amount of trouble. I'm still using my other printers, they tend to be more for things that aren't quite as critical for fit. If there is some interest I can show the process I follow to get a good fit. It could be a pretty short video I'd imagine.

[@Rebar77_real]

@@NeedItMakeIt We could always print our specific shapes, minus the thickness of some sandpaper, to make adjustments if we really needed to. Edit: But yes, dialing into micrometer levels of accuracy would benefit a lot of people. Getting horizontal and hole expansion %'s into real world 0.01 mm's is definitely a good skill to have. Better to change clearances in Fusion instead because you're changing the entire scale at that point, right? etc, etc. Rainy day ideas anyway. Cheers. Figurines are fun but even larger ones need parts to fit together eventually!

[@sergeb7945]

The Drop Lock joint is definitely intended to maximize contact area and be glued. More generaly speaking, woodworking joints are designed to mitigate 2 very specific issues: - anisotropic strength of wood fibers: wood has its strength in one dimension only, whereas 3D print has two (XY plane) - anisotropic distortion / warp due to woods' sensitivity to moisture Woodworking joints are cool as f, but 3D printing it a different process. Each has its own perks and losses

[@JasonNaas]

Just wanted to say that I am really, really enjoying your stuff. I have been kind of obsessed with the idea of combining woodworking with 3D printing (with wood filament, no less) and have been learning tons. Thanks for all you're doing.

[@802Garage]

Too awesome! I love it when people apply existing ideas to 3D printing in new ways. Not only are you coming up with great solutions, but you will help many people think of more.

[@802Garage]

P.S. It would be fun to try some of these with a little more clearance and fuzzy skin. It would act like insane velcro, haha.

[@jameskoomler3255]

I really like how, at least from the videos I have seen, you've been going over topics that often are just presented and nothing else. I am mainly referring to how you format your videos in a really easy to follow/replicate manner. So I got to say keep up the good work!

[@NeedItMakeIt]

Thank you! I'm trying to put a lot of effort into them in the hopes that the videos are clearer, make more sense and are also at least somewhat entertaining. I'm still working on the style for the walkthroughs, they're a little harder to do and I think I'll have to think about the best way to present them, I need to use my hands somehow while also showing the screen clearly. I'm sure there is some solution out there for that.

[@benharkins_]

I'm sure you've thought of this, but it'd be great to see a control sample in the testing video. Having just a 3d printed rod without any joinery could show exactly how much strength is lost or gained with each joint

[@insanity_squirrel]

Would love it if you tested each joints maximum breaking load from both angles of stress!! Push it till they snap and measure the forces. We would be able to see which joints would be suitable for what jobs. Thanks for sharing your great work! Keep it up!

[@NeedItMakeIt]

That is coming! I wanted to collect as many ideas and have them prepped and then we'll have an ULTIMATE face-off, Travolta/Cage style. I have a feeling that a screw and connection combination will be the best overall, it's hard to say for sure. Also a connection like this which uses adhesive would make for a very strong connection too. I have a lot of ideas for follow up videos and it's interesting and I hope at least a little bit useful.

[@littlehills739]

like to see each joint make a cube that if scaled could be sat on

[@Lvl2farmer]

This has been the one of the strongest connections I've seen in the Internet yet. Thank you for sharing your knowledge to the World

[@NeedItMakeIt]

Thank you very much, and I think we've only just begun! I'm hoping that together we can put all of our heads together and crowd-source the best ideas. I don't know for sure where this will end up, but I think we're onto something and I hope it opens up some opportunities for 3D printing larger parts and objects, and maybe gives people some ideas. Lots and lots more to come my friend, thank you so much for the kind word and support!

[@Lvl2farmer]

@@NeedItMakeIt we all thank you for content creators like you to share knowledge.

[@TheMercurial_]

You could make youtube shorts of timelapse printing these joints, and then interlocking them together and that alone could be "oddly satisfying" content I bet

[@sp4yke]

hands down the best 3d printing channel on KZbin :)

[@NeedItMakeIt]

Man! You're awesome! There are so many good channels out there, this is just an amazing thing to hear. I'm still planning on getting better and I'll work as hard as I can in order to provide the best content I can, even if it kills me.

[@monta3420]

I hope you get way more than 100k by 2025. Your videos are some of the best KZbin can offer, thanks for making them!

[@hellothere6627]

These videos are prefect for a large format high stress project I’m working on! I like the inclusion of CAD drawing, it makes it easier to recreate even though it isn’t ment to be a step by step tutorial. I’m excited for the final test results!

[@haydenc2742]

Drip lock (or Drop lock)...looks like a drop of water or melted plastic The Echo lock looks like a pretty tough lock Keep em coming!!!!

[@scerstt]

What settings to get the outside walls to look like those with the text? Fuzzy skin? what specific values? Looks super super nice!

[@Yavorh55]

Love that this is becoming a series. We need it!

[@nizamrahman4665]

Coming across your channel right when I was looking at improving 'joineries' of my own gives me more reason to look into this kinds of stuff. I kinda made a brass bow tie equivalent which worked too good that it negated the need for adhesives.

[@TastySlowCooker]

Maybe alongside thanking subscribers and Patreon supporters you should also thank the KZbin algorithm. Seems it’s been helping out quite a lot in the last few weeks

[@1trickpwny]

Dude, thank you for making these. I've been wanting someone to combine 3D printing and woodworking for a while now.

[@greyvlad]

I really enjoy these videos, specially because I'm just getting started and have a bunch of things that I want to print that are outside of printer build area. My Initial thought is that these connections have a base that is too thing and therefore can't withstand forces pulling away at it that well, so best to keep it for compression forces. I only print in PLA and it doesn't like tugging or lateral forces that much, compression is mostly fine as long as I'm not putting dumbbell on it I guess. Are these concerns valid? Could I make a frame out of these to hang stuff from it that is under 10-15 kg load?

[@milanpeeters6305]

I'm amazed at the speed at which you are making these video's, keep it up man 👌🏼 Can't wait for the load tests.

[@inventorbrothers7053]

These are great! I've got to try these in ny projects. I appreciate you've shown how to create then in fusion 360. Thanks!

[@keepitrealandtoasty]

The echo lock is absolutely awesome.

[@joshuamccracken8994]

Really cool connection ideas! I like echo lock the most because as you stated it looks to be strongest and less likely for a part of the joint to break because the parts are thicker

[@Grafton1046]

stumbled across this video, Love the joints. I'm going to try the echo joint on a printed art frame that's not been up to my standards when attempting to use screws. Huge thank you for including the fusion files.

[@Evinosx]

Im enjoying the joinery videos. Its not something a lot of people think about with 3d printing, but it's really good for printing larger projects. It would be great to see you tie together larger/unusual shaped parts rather than rods as well.

[@NeedItMakeIt]

For sure, I think I'd like to create a frame with every type of connection so far, that would be at least a good start, I'm also planning to make some furniture in wood and have it compete against a piece that's 3D printed to see if we can make something that's just as good. That's going to be tough, but I think it's a worthwhile challenge.

[@rodrigob]

Super interesting series. Looking forward to the next video!

[@imjustaguy1721]

OHHHHHH YESSS!!!! I was thinking of these connectins for so long but never made anything multipart that needs it yet

[@joshwarner5676]

Your drop lock joint exists in woodworking and is called an isoloc joint. You need either a special router jig to cut it or a CNC machine. It's a nice joint because it behaves just like a dovetail in that it only can be assembled or disassembled in one direction, and it has a good mechanical lock when cut with a good fit. Also lots of glue surface area.

[@NeedItMakeIt]

You know it does look similar, thanks for pointing it out. I have some plans to try the connections in wood, some are going to be really tough if they're on a curve, the Echo connection is doable with hand-tools for sure, but the Drop Lock with the tapers is not so straight forward. I'll have to think about how it might be possible.

[@joshwarner5676]

@@NeedItMakeIt for the drop lock with tapered surfaces in wood you could probably use a 3d printed router guide and then use a tapered router bit with either a bearing or follower bushing. Obviously that limits what taper angle you can get, but I think they sell some pretty shallow taper angle bits. Just cut each half of the joint from the opposite side of the board, that way the tapers match.

[@grumpyoldvet313]

I like the look of both the drop lock and the echo lock. You are making me want to learn more on using CAD software! I hope you hit the 100K well before your goal!

[@sierraecho884]

Great video series, good designs. Well done.

[@efeldhusen]

I’m really curious to see how all the various joints test out with measuring equipment. I look forward to that video. 😃

[@lazyman1011]

Thanks for another great video. The CAD explanations are great and easy to follow. Please add a side note in the next video of how you sliced them, before you destroy them or upload a 3MF for the BambuLab. Especially where did you put the z seam for best clearance and strength. Thanks!

[@Ender_Wiggin]

Really like the Echo lock. Would love to see it at a 90 degree. Keep up the great content

[@NeedItMakeIt]

Me too, I think it might have the highest potential of any non-screw connection so far. I'll have a follow up video where we can test all of them out to see which connections reign supreme! I'd like to get some ideas from you guys too so we can have some other connections in the mix too.

[@sauravdas6436]

After your previous video I immediately started drawing curved and fractal dovetails! So glad to see the drop shape and more. I wonder if there's mathematically optimal shapes (for various directions and tolerances), and how they work in real life

[@chipcode5538]

I prefer the simplicity of the echo lock. Great work

[@EV-wp1fj]

Keep going! Been great to see this channel grow.

[@NeedItMakeIt]

Thanks, we've only just begun! I have so many ideas, I just need to find a way to make them into videos faster and improve my video skills in general... maybe get a hair cut too :)

[@CoreyParkison]

Excellent video! Very nicely done and thank you for the cutting edge content!

[@NeedItMakeIt]

Thank you! I think this is a pretty interesting topic and we're going to be taking it way further than this, I want to build some small pieces of furniture both from wood and printed and we're going to go head-to-head, I'd going to be hard to beat the traditional wood piece, but we're going to see what we can do to be competitive. Lots and lots more to come!

[@terryd8692]

Great video. I like to make modular objects where you have small parts and steing together a dozen or more, so the joint is really important especially with regards to slipping and slack. Any movement in the joint is multiplied due to the number of joints. I like the dutch joint with a hollow wedge that offers some springiness to hold them together. Obviously not as strong but strong enough for what I need.

[@usafa1987]

Good stuff. I see that the Fusion files are linked in your description. But, I wonder if we could get a PDF of the drawing of the parts. That would help those who don’t have Fusion, as well as those of us who will want to model it ourselves.

[@jmirodg7094]

Cool! I'm eager to see the strength test! For a well designed system you will be ultimately limited by the pulling surface at the neck

[@trendstrategics]

Beautiful work

[@wyw876]

For testing, you'll need to categorize what forces you're pitting your joints against. It'd be dangerous to only test for tension (pull), if someone uses your ranking to print ladder rungs for standing on (lateral loading). Good hunting!

[@beauslim]

Another great video! This is fun stuff. I've played with some similar things like designing snap-together hinged joints. The "alien" join has some nice aspects, like being all curves so should not have ringing artifacts, and they look nice enough to be seen. I could definitely see using it to join flat sheets on their edges.

[@NeedItMakeIt]

It's kind of like a puzzle, I think this one would be really good with some adhesive, it would help to extend the part into each other. There are a few more ideas to explore as well. I'd like to experiment with a tapered cylinder shape or perhaps a tapered prism shape which would be better for 3D printing to avoid bridges. I'm not really sure just yet how it will work out, but tapers make for a lot of surface area, they just need something to bring the connections together and keep them tight to remain that way. I was hoping that these would give people some ideas that are even better so we can come up with the absolute best connection together. That has me wondering, if I ask AI to create the best 3D printing connection, what will it say?

[@Optisystemizer]

This is gold. Keep up the good work!

[@plasma16]

Found this interesting, the improvement I can think of is to add a horizontal notch in the middle of the joints so that it locks in place when pushed to the right position. Something that can't be done in traditional woodwork joints, but absolutely possible in 3D printing.

[@CaptnWaffles]

For the stress analysis, bonded contacts isn't a good choice to represent reality. Sliding with separation would produce more realistic results. Also, an adaptive mesh type would better highlight the high stress areas. Regardless, real world testing is the best and I look forward to watching your next presentation. Excellent work!

[@coleabbott3432]

Great video, thanks for reading my comment and implementing it! Subscribed!

[@TheSnekkerShow]

Pretty cool. For the drop lock, you could change it to a hammerhead lock to eliminate some flex. Add a small squared area at the end, kind of like the head of a mallet, rather than a water drop. This would be less practical with wood because of a high chance of end-grain splitting during assembly, but you effectively have continual edge grain with the 3D-printed joint. It wouldn't take much of a ledge to prevent the joint from being pulled apart.

[@ScandinavianCoward]

Very interesting! You should try some of the intricate Japanese woodworking joints.

[@TheRealStructurer]

Great video 👍🏻 Looking forward to the test video. Hope you will test until they break 😉 I’m interested to know which direction is stronger/weaker. Thanks for sharing 👍🏼

[@tuqe]

It would be interesting to see joining of different materials. I remember seeing something about a bridge made from recycled plastic that used mechanical interlocking strands to overcome plastic bonding issues

[@KriegAdler09]

I made a 5 piece FDM print about 3-4 weeks ago, using poke yoke dove tail joints. While I designed a gap between the pieces for each joint, I STILL had to use a Dremel sander to remove excess material. If I had enough time, I would have made two test parts to determine how much of a designed gap was needed to avoid having to remove material for a clean fit. Unfortunately, the “urgent” need for the prints, the size of the prints (printer volume), and that each print was taking at least 1 day, meant that I had to wing it. I also do not have the luxury of time to play around with the printer, given my 3-4 jobs that I cover as one person. (Using CATIA V5, and MakerBot Replicator - PLA material).

[@seedmoreuser]

Looks great, the first dovetail you made in the other video with the scarf joint seems to have a lot more surface area for the joint to succeed. Wonder if you made the echo lock with the same scarf angle if it would perform better than the original dovetail.

[@Soljarag5]

Wish I would have seen this last week! Oh well, I'm sure I'll need it again soon

[@schrodingerscat1863]

Try looking at some of the Japanese woodworking joints for inspiration. These tend to use complex geometry to get around the shortcomings of simple dove tails making them very tricky to fabricate in wood but for 3d printing it would be easy.

[@peaceorpieces8343]

Mike The king of joints I love a strong joint

[@slahsamet8722]

Alien fingers are very pretty... and quite sturdy... The idea is also to have a joints system that's really simple to incorporate into 3D designs..

[@yosefmizrachi]

Just wanted to drop a line and say thank you. Really like your channel and the direction of it.

[@kemperflow5467]

Great content and engineering. An idea for another video.. We often make dartboard light surrounds which can be 20" in diameter. Due to the size of print beds we normally need to print 5 pieces. The joinery on existing models is wonky. Would love to see if there is a joint that would really lock together all the pieces when joined in a circle. Something that stops front to back wiggle, stops the circle from deforming/twisting. Thanks!

[@ercintorun1085]

It would be really good to have such inbuild feature on slicers to divide big prints.

[@martinsmith2948]

absoletuly fanastic, tharks!

[@NeedItMakeIt]

That's great, I'm so glad you liked it!

[@jedisct1]

Awesome video, thank you!

[@TheKokanut]

Cool video …. Yes do some more joints. Also let’s see some Japanese wood working joints

[@stew675]

Great work and ideas as always Mike!

[@GregorShapiro]

I count 5 'walls' in the prints; that kind of information as well as what pattern and how much infill is useful and of course what kind of filament. A wider drop, maybe 22° (perhaps 30° might be too much) would be an interesting modification. Testing various taper angles and clearance distances is another area of interest, how much they influence assembly ease and stiffness.

[@brandonb417]

This reminds me of some videos I've seen on Japanese wood working and their fancy joints. I wonder if you could do stuff like this but without bi-directional tapers, then use a center pin to hold it all together. That way it goes together easier but is still firmly fixed.

[@EyeKnowRaff]

Sounds like the layer lines are adding a bit of extra friction. In this case, its probably not a problem vs if you're trying to use FDM prints for casting fiber reinforced resin parts where you want the mold parts to separate eventually.

[@brewbuilds]

thanks for these videos man. they are very well done, and super interesting. Drop Lock sound way more professional, stick with that.👍🏻Keep it up!👊🏻

[@FrancoisMathieu]

Keep them coming, very interesting!

[@ConsultingjoeOnline]

Very nice designs. Thanks! Subscribed!

[@thaGiLe]

This is great! Just a thought, some music would be cool at sections like @10:00

[@NeedItMakeIt]

I'm so bad with music, I will have a look and try to add it here and there, still learning all of the little tricks to make a good video, we'll get there eventually!

[@WyrdieBeardie]

Wow! These videos are great!

[@NeedItMakeIt]

Thank you, I'm hoping to improve more as I get a bit more comfy talking to a camera, it's a bit strange at first. I want to get to a point where I'm one of the top channels for 3D printing related content and that's no easy task, there are a lot of good high-quality channels already. I like a good challenge, so we'll see where this goes. I appreciate your kind words, it really helps to get me motivated to do better!

[@TomatePasFraiche]

So good! My dream is that there would be an option to do it on the fly in slicers, I'm sure it would work for like 90 percent of cases and still produce strong parts. And then the slicer could produce 2 prints etc

[@atomicsmith]

My guess is that the strength of any joint like this in a 3D print will depend mostly on how continuous the tension is in the outer boundary layers as opposed to the inner shapes that will pull mostly on the infill. I think your echo lock might work well, mostly because the outer wedges are close to the boundary layers. It might be interesting to test different spacing on the outer wedges, and a smaller inner wedge and see if this affects strength. There’s also four faces that this tension continuity needs to be optimized for….

[@kalysta5880]

I love your videos!! Very thorough and interesting joints. Keep up the great content! At 5:21 you are showing the offset amount at .05 mm but only on the grey side of the joint. Is this offset done on the red side of the joint as well? Do you also fillet the outer corners/edges of the joint faces with .3 mm? Also, what size chamfer do you use on the outside edges of the whole part?

[@lynchc236]

Did you use fuzzy skin to get that nice texture on the walls of the print? What settings did you use? It looks great.

[@IronFairy]

Alien fingers is definitely a catchier name

[@NeedItMakeIt]

I liked it too, it's maybe not as professional sounding... "Hey Bob, what type of connection are you using?" B: "Oh yeah, I'm using Alien Fingers".... and then silence because they don't know how to respond. Well that's how I picture the conversation going.

[@TinTalon]

Great video. Thank you.

[@AsiAzzy]

Another way to model joints is to model the spliting surface. Like model whatever surface you like. analyze it to see if it can slide to join.. maybe curve some parts a bit to make it snap in correct place when fitted. Then for tolerances just thicken the surface to a body and uniontrim both parts with this cuting body. Or just split the bodys with this cutting surface and add offest to create tolerances.. this way may be harder to offset individual surfaces but it leaves more room to adjust tolerances as some dimensions need different tolerances. I use Catia and modelling a surface in GSD is easy peasy.. cutting bodies in Part Design with that GSD surface is also trivial. (sure an overkill of engineering program with 4-5 figures price.. i have it, i teach it, i use it).

[@tombo7719]

Hey thanks for those. I D/L'd them and will try em out!

[@anthonylipke7754]

I'd like to see the echo lock a little rounder. I think looking to balance the thinnest sections between the two blocks so they are as thick as they can be in trade off to one another and and a generous curve will make the failure paths harder. Also I think the center red on the echo lock could be shorter without negative effect.

[@RossOlsonDotCom]

Consider adding beefy eyehooks at the ends of each bar so that you can put them in a rig to add weight to see how they hold up to actual loads.

[@markus7440]

your parts look very good. can you explain how you print whithout layer lines? or can you make a video about it?

[@haukur1]

It would be interesting to see joinery like this that uses locking shims like the ones often associated with Japanese joinery

[@spyder2782]

Great video look forward to the results

[@brianone69]

Have you tried creating these cut profiles in the surface modeling feature? You can create the profile, extrude it with zero width and use it as a cutting tool that can be used to divide any shape

[@zoltanr15]

It would be fun to see this in a 3d printed frame, like the 100 3D printer

[@KevinTurner-aka-keturn]

This has me wondering about joints for mixed materials. What if you want to join a PETG print to a wooden plank or dowel? From what you've demonstrated, it's clear there are woodworking joins you could use that don't require the unique abilities of 3D printing. But maybe there's also something clever you could do with an asymmetrical design, where the printed side would take advantage of what you can do with the printer's additive process while still leaving the wooden side easy to craft with traditional subtractive tools.

[@christophercollier6091]

What if you made the fingers shorter in the Drop Lock? In woodworking, longer fingers = more glue surface, but if it’s just a compression fit, wouldn’t it be better to keep the compression close to the part? Like lifting a heavy object close to the body? Essentially, you could apply more force to the fulcrum, like a heavier person staying close to the trunk if you’re standing on a limb. (I’m not sure if I’m explaining this adequately…)

[@dzimmu]

Cool! Really helpful, thank you so much

[@MidMadn]

Thank You for the video. I don't really know CAD - though I'm hoping to find the time to learn it in the future. What I'm most curious about with these video's is - your print quality is amazing for the most part. I'm assuming you're using glass fiber or CF filament but I wonder if you're using fuzzy skin at all and if so - if you have a video or would share your fuzzy skin settings? Thank You again.

[@ProtonOne11]

I wonder if the round features of the drop lock are better long term, because with the sharp corners of the other dovetails you can get more concentrated stress points in the corners.

[@ramim.5856]

I like these video I will check the other videos on the channel Thanks!

[@benherronnz]

In your testimg i would love to see measurements for deflection in the various axis. For me im looking at the ways to split a 10mm thick flange in half to fit printer, so the deflection is actually more important then the strength as it impacts the clamping pressure along the join.

[@Litl_Skitl]

I do like the drops a lot cause I imagine they would print a lot quicker, having no sharp edges to decelerate for. I also imagine fewer corners limits stress points.

[@NeedItMakeIt]

You got it! That was the thought around the droplet shape, I thought it would give a bit better speed and remove the sharp corners, it's not really adding anything to pull the connection together, but if adhesive is added it adds glue surface area. It needs a bit more work before the show down.

[@tuqe]

Ty for kg! Technically newtons would be an actual measure of force and not mass, but this is practical if your scale can’t do newtons

[@rondlh20]

Very interesting!

[@philipershler420]

What type of filament are you using for these test pieces? I have found Carbon fiber PLA very strong, relatively inexpensive and producing amazingly good looking surface finishes.

[@binariti]

When testing you maybe should increase infill of whole part. Connections themselves has a lot of perimeters combined, that makes connection zone close to 100% infill, so it should be stronger that beam body itself.