Designing and 3D Printing a Tap Guide Block in Fusion 360

I need a tap guide block for the mill spindle project, so I'm going to make one. I've gotten lots of questions about my process in Fusion 360, so today I'm bringing you the entire process, beginning to end, unedited.
Tools in this video:
*This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated
Chicago Latrobe HSS Short Letter Drill Set (Amazon*): amzn.to/2PWx0dL
Chicago Latrobe HSS Short Number Drill Set (Amazon*): amzn.to/2Qgss0S
3Dconnexion SpaceMouse Compact 3D Mouse (Amazon*): amzn.to/2TSJ2q9

[@robcairns186]

What a fantastic tool, never heard of it before and definately going to make one, thanx.

[@ChrisMower]

That's what I love about KZbin, I am always learning. What with This Old Tony, Joe Pieczynski and your good self I will be a PhD in no time! Much appreciated James.

[@Acheiropoietos]

The hole distribution was bloody magical. Thank you. This idea would make a great drill guide too.

[@MrPatdeeee]

I think it's great, Keep up the good work James. Love it!

[@KenWmo]

Thank you for showing the destination (completed part) before taking us through the steps. It helps me to follow along. Excellent and well presented as always.

[@paultrgnp]

Thanks for the Fusion 360 tutorial. I can see that there are a lot of suggestions for improved processes etc below, but there is nothing like watching someone develop a useful project from start to finish, without too many flourishes. Cheers.

[@EverettsWorkshop]

Thanks for sharing the process you used for setting up the holes, the approach makes a lot of sense.

[@paul.newland]

Many thanks for sharing this video. Lots of other *tutorials* for F360 focus on how the tool works - often what's missing is how to *apply* that tool to solve engineering problems. It's the clear explanation of your thought process related to how you approach the problem of modelling this component in F360 that is the great value.

[@DavidinEssexUK]

Just watched Adam Savage use one and I’ve got some tapping to do so was going to buy one, as I have a 3D printer of course I can make one. Thanks for the idea.

[@toms4123]

Excellent instructions on Fusion and good idea

[@joell439]

James, I really appreciate you taking the time to run through the Fusion 360 build and 3D print settings. I hope recording this didn't add too much time. And if not, please consider doing more. 😊 I learn faster from watching you than working through other tutorials. And your explanations and details of why you select specific features/settings are so clear and easy to follow. THANK YOU 👍😎👍

[@95GTSpeedDemon]

Agreed, this is good stuff!

[@mikeparfitt8897]

A reduction in material and print time could be achieved by putting the largest hole in the middle and wrapping the other 9 around it.

[@twobob]

I did think that but then questioned the rigidity, since it abs and the only borne forces are incredibly low compared to material strength (one imagines) the question may be one of ergonomics and practicality. Thus thumbs up, assuming that is being considered.

[@Clough42]

That's a good idea.

[@erikjohansson1814]

If you want to reduce the time even further, and with a more professional look, he should put the smaller holes inside the biggest hole. So obvious and strange he didn’t noticed that.

[@somebodyelse6673]

Perhaps not a consideration, but then the ability to put the .5" hole close to a shoulder is lost. Worth noting anyway.

[@robertoswalt319]

The only issue is if the hole that needs to be tapped is near a wall but, otherwise a good idea.

[@jonty2020]

Great video. I do just the same with 3d prints where I need a precise hole size. I use fusion 360 a lot, but still learning and liked the tutorial on this part.

[@mkegadgets4380]

Very interesting video, I’m gonna take while I learned in his video and make a Allen wrench holder the same way. Outside diameter I’m gonna put a groove for an O-ring and have the groove intersect the holes of the Allen wrench in just a little bit, to provide some tension so they don’t fall out. Thank you

[@RyJones]

I saw that paper cutter in your last video and bought one. So much grease on the blade - had to really clean it up. Thanks for the tip!

[@williamhenry7491]

Like it, I am learning a lot.

[@Clough42]

So am I. :)

[@minskmade]

love the idea of a circular tap guide. I bought a couple of the Gator ones(metric and imperial) they are long and rectangular... They can get awkward to use on small parts. I like this design better. nice design. might be nice to make one on the mill. Have an awesome day and thanks for the great content.

[@Clough42]

Yeah. I have the drills. It would be pretty straightforward. Just locate and drill the holes. Hmm...

[@minskmade]

@@Clough42 yup maybe just use 3" stock....you already did all the heavy lifting :). this wpould have been a nice project for the atc spindle :P

[@ChaosOptional]

You can use right click while measuring and select tangential to e.g. measure the distance between to circles. Also, you can change the selection filter on the fly - in your case you could have just ignored construction lines...

[@rocket_rod67]

Hi James, I always like seeing how others use Fusion 360. Only thing I can see which could cause a problem is that a 1" thick Tap Guide might not allow enough of the tap to stick out the bottom, especially with the smaller taps. Of course the beauty of Fusion 360 is the ease at which to modify that feature and simply re-print another.

[@TannerFrisby]

Always great content! I've used (purchased) tap blocks at work. They had bushings to limit wear. Do you think wear will be an issue with these? Also, would you mind posting the fusion files / .stl's for this and the metric version? Thanks and keep up the great work!

[@danapatelzick594]

Good idea, one could also make a combined tool with a drill guide pressed into a hole and a separate hole for the tap guide. Usefull if building a large plate with a pattern of threaded holes. My drill press would miss the center most holes. Probably add a guide for a chamfer bit.

[@hopelessnerd6677]

A useful gadget, and a good video. I think your filament has some moisture in it, which is why your print is "knarly". Bake it in the oven for awhile and try it again. I think it will turn out fine. I usually design "on size", then add 1% in the slicer for ABS shrinkage. I learn more from watching somebody design a part than from trying to explain how to design a part. Thanks.

[@Clough42]

The lumpy surface was caused by buffer underruns in OctoPi. Removing some problematic plugins solved it. Moisture really isn't an issue where I live. Filament doesn't pick up moisture, and tools don't rust. Cars don't really rust, either. I have my slicer set to default to 100.5%, which gets me pretty much perfectly on size.

[@LocnavLivoc]

there are some plugins or stand alone programs that display the curent keys you are pressing when you record your screen. that way you can run fast through your part creation and we also can pause if we want details.

[@nefariousyawn]

That would be brilliant, and then he wouldn't need to remember to state which keys he is pressing.

[@notsonominal]

Haven't seen a rule chamfer either, but if you need all lines in a plane you can drag a box and select from the side (usually easier to start dragging a selection box outside any geometry). Its usually also faster to select all and unselect one if you need all but one etc.

[@EcoMouseChannel]

This is a great idea, I really need something like this. As the one I currently have is only a drill bit guide. That's not where I usually need the help... it's the tapping that usually ends up catywhompus. Turns out there are tons of these already on the interwebs... even Thingaverse has some. I was all set to get complicated... I can't believe I never bothered to check if these were a thing.

[@Clough42]

I looked at Thingiverse first, and decided I wanted a few of the details different.

[@diepurpledino]

Looks like a great design for a revolver for people with bad aim hunting dangerous game.... keep bumping up the caliber as the bear charges! :)

[@reddcube]

If you do want to add text, you could wrap it around the outside cylinder.

[@ligius3]

It comes out pretty bad as it's an unsupported feature. Seeing how the outside of the cylinder looks, I wouldn't hold my hopes up for crisp text. It would make for a fine knurled surface though.

[@0ADVISOR0]

I also drill holes to size on my 3d prints.

[@mycbeats1276]

In the latest version of Cura (4.6.1?) they added "Hole Horizontal Expansion". Works great. Before I used use hole_diameter + "holeoffset" parameter in Fusion so I could globally adjust all hole sizes.

[@chris-tg6ki]

Thanks for this! I'll take a look later

[@ibmortensen6628]

Hi, I had the same problems with "blobs" on the surfaces. My solution was to decrease the flow through the nozzle by a few percent and the problem was solved. / Ib

[@TylerHicksWright]

An easier way to do the spacing between circles would be to set a dimension between the two, which will be the distance between their centers, using a formula. So, instead of entering a value, you enter a formula, e.g. (d16+d17)/2+0.1. d16 and d17 would be the dimensions of the two circles, which you can get by clicking on each circle's dimension. *Edit: To get the last one to dimension with the first one, you would just need to remove the dimension on the outer circle (or toggle it to a driven dimension) and then the puck would be whatever size is right for a 0.100" web between all the holes and the outer edge.

[@lgj1962]

I see it’s already covered here, but just to reiterate...leave your part OD not dimensioned (I.e. driven) and then dimension an inter-circle line segment the same as your offset dimension (can just click on the offset dimension when entering the value). Then everything stays related and keeps us anally retentive people all happy! Tip: don’t be too quick to make sure the sketch is fully defined “as you go”, keeping things “blue” until the last step keeps your design intent open. Usually one last choice gets everything “black”, and away you go. I enjoy the content, keep it up!

[@Clough42]

Good advice. I always learn from the comments after uploading.

[@malcolmmiller3718]

Another way to get around your tangent circles flipping is just change your dimension to driven and drag to resize it close to what you want. Change you dimension back to driving, enter the dimension you are looking for and you’re good to go.

[@hotfuzz1913]

Nice project, cool use of constraints

[@tablatronix]

Do any slicers have a way to make holes or inner permitters have more shells/walls, I like to have more material for reaming, threading etc?. Cura now has "hole horizontal expansion" which helps with hole accuracy.

[@kazolar]

For 100mm/sec that's a pretty good result, I'd slow it down for a small prat like that where I'm not in a rush -- you'll get a cleaner surface finish, but the exterior doesn't matter much since you'll just drill out all the holes anyway. I've made these before, unfortunately they don't last very long -- plastic vs a hardened steel tap.

[@Clough42]

Actually, it's a terrible result. I found the problem, and now the part is silky smooth, still at 100mm/s.

[@tiredoldmechanic1791]

I made one out of steel using the taps then I can clamp it to the surface to start the tap into the hole.

[@robertwithrow7813]

Off-topic question: what's your video and screen-cast capture and edit software stack? Maybe put that in the "about" tab?

[@PedroCoelho98]

Quick tip: to measure from outside the circles select Dimension Tool and just right click and select from tangent and THEN click to measure!

[@Clough42]

Yeah. Several people mentioned this. Probably the best thing I learned from posting this.

[@Trancelebration]

@@Clough42 You can also sketch intersecting points between circles and construction line, then use break command and have same results, but without sketch-solver slowdown.

[@Clough42]

I tried this and there are a couple of catches. Once you break the geometry, you have to go back and put in colinear constraints to keep the segments in place. And then, once I set the equals constraint and a dimension, it takes the solver quite a while to figure it out and resize the sketch. It definitely works, but I think the right-click-tangent dimensions are probably quicker and result in less clutter in the sketch.

[@Clough42]

(hehe) actually, there's an even simpler way: just draw the construction line center-to-center, then place points at the intersections and dimension off the points.

[@Trancelebration]

@@Clough42 Whatever works man :) Like 90% of F360 features - there is nothing written in stone and you can do something 10 different ways :) Sketch solver could be a bit more robust though.

[@Seth-mb9nt]

6:32 Can't be sure but I think it would be possible to just delete the dimension, get the outer circle to be blue, and then drag it smaller than needed before locking it with a dimension at the proper size again, rather than all the steps you took in small increments.

[@jamesshimek5694]

I liked seeing your approach to a model in fusion, I paused the video before you started your hole layouts and I played through how I would do it. It didn't even occur to me to use the equals constraint! I was going to dimension the web (like you did) but actually assign each web a distanced based on the diameter of the 3d printer nozzle (like 2.4mm so you could have two 1.6mm wall thicknesses and then un-constrain the overall size and let the 3d printed wall thicknesses control the overall size. But truth to tell this design doesn't really need that so the equals constraint makes more sense! Please do talk through the designs like you did in this one, you don't necessarily have to show the creation of the model, but point out the little details so we can see what's going through your mind just like you did with this one!

[@gwharton68]

I often wonder when all the YT videos about 3D printing, how many actually know how to create their own designs not just print some thing they download. Also what brand of printer do you use that has a tandem head? Thanks for the info.

[@matheuswohl]

talking about knowing how to design stuff in 3d, guess who designed the extruder in the video clough42.com/designs/itty-bitty-double-flex-v2/

[@RambozoClown]

I'm not the only one with a gnarly gnozzle.

[@courtneyfaas1266]

@Clough42 sooooo since I dont have a 3d Printer you win. Yours is better than mine. With that being said, what 3d printer IS that?? I'm sure you've said it before, I'm just usually so entranced at your craftsmanship that I forget to listen!

[@azenginerd9498]

As a veteran Solidworks driver, watching some of the Fusion workflows makes me want yell at the screen... You might have set the two wall thickness dimensions equal and turned the OD to driven. Also, instead of firstly creating the construction from hole to hole, you could have created the lines between hole sides and then set those lines coincident to each hole center. Same result, less geometry, more sketch relations, easier selection in the next step.

[@anathaetownsend1894]

I agree with the make the outside dimension driven, but there are even other ways to create this tool using Fusion360, let alone between modeling applications. It is unfortunate that Fusion360 does not appear to have a way make a line perpendicular to a radius, this is the constraint you seem to be using in Solidworks. My own way of modeling this seems mirror yours. Instead of just watching his video and copying his model, I took his drill diameters, a basic idea of what the end shape would be, and designed my own version before watching how he designed it. I started with a too big circle with no specified dimension with ten holes inside with the close fit drill sizes for diameter. Around each of these circles I created a construction circle that was concentric, and was larger than the drill hole by twice the intended wall thickness between adjacent holes and the outer circle. By making each of these construction circles tangent with the outer circle and the adjacent drill holes, the outer circle diameter is driven. Because of a love of "whole" numbers, I found that the outer diameter could be made 7/4 (1.750) inches by having an offset of 0.1012 inches.

[@swamihuman9395]

​@@anathaetownsend1894, you wrote: "It is unfortunate that Fusion360 does not appear to have a way make a line perpendicular to a radius" - LINE PERPENDICULAR TO RADIUS OF CIRCLE/ARC (or tangent to) Start line on circle; drag in tangent direction; done:) - LINE PARALLEL TO RADIUS OF CIRCLE/ARC (or perpendicular to) Start line on circle; drag in perpendicular direction; done:) So, is that what you're looking for, or have I missed something? Hope that helps.

[@pentachronic]

Totally agree. Fusion is so unintuitive.

[@cybernetix86]

you need to calibrate your extrusion. it seems to be overextruding. For the part itself, you might want to add more perimeter instead of putting more infill. that way if you want to tap the hole to make them the perfect size you will still have enough material inside. Oh! and thank you for the video! I learned a bunch about constraint, I never thought to use them that way

[@Clough42]

The lumps on the outside of this particular part were caused by pauses due to an OctoPrint plugin. I fixed it soon after this video was complete.

[@Mcfly77777]

Love your videos. One suggestion, try usIng PETG. much easier to print than ABS and also very strong. No warping.

[@Clough42]

I use PETG all the time. For large, flat trays, it's awesome. But it's more flexible, can't really bridge, and has to be printed slower. I also have to babysit the start of the print to keep a ball of filament from sticking to the nozzle. ABS falls cleanly away during the purge and wipes off on the edge of the glass. So it's tradeoffs.

[@Mcfly77777]

@@Clough42 thanks James. Indeed tradeoffs. A while ago I decided ABS was too finicky to spend my time on so I completely gave up on it. I never have to babysit PETG. In fact I have not cleaned or leveled my print bed in almost 2 years. I just switch the printer on remotely and send it via octoprint. I'm almost afraid to get a new printer since this one works so well!

[@minskmade]

@@Mcfly77777 leo which printer you have

[@andriosz]

@@Mcfly77777 And right there you've told him your printer is better :P

[@Mcfly77777]

@@minskmade Have a Qidi Tech I, a FlashForge Creator Pro clone. It's a full metal frame with an enclosure.

[@tylernewcomb1431]

Hey James, great video. Just as an aside, you mentioned that the g-code was not running well on your printer causing the "outstanding" surface finish. I have had similar problems when feeding g-code from a Raspberry Pi. Have you tried running a similar code off an sd card? This was one of the reasons that I chose to upgrade to a duet wifi board (Highly Recommend BTW).

[@Clough42]

The issue was octopi. Specifically the octodash screen software and associated plugins. That was a recent addition and was causing the problems.

[@AVBros37]

Are you gonna put these up on thinkiverse?

[@chris-tg6ki]

When making a hole i found you had to add the nozzle diameter to the hole size, so if you wanted a 5mm hole, if you made the hole 5.2mm in the drawing, by the time its added .2mm of fill your .2mm past/undersize, dependant on nozzle size. The center of the nozzle follows the path of your outer/inner line work, so you end up half the extruded width over all the way around the part. Also i found that if you altered the angular deveation when meshing it, as standard its set to about 30 degrees, i think this means it calculates holes like a 30Degrees sided object instead of a circle, so it moves across the hole area instead of around it, helps with the stringyness inside the hole slightly, not too sure about fusion as im using freecad, very new too this myself, youll be better at this than me as you work with tool offsets already.

[@paigashaona2331]

For the deviation of exporting, I always pick the highest quality, just to try and get the exported STL as close as possible to the modeled features. Also, the offset required is slicer dependent. Good slicers (like KISSlicer) model the extrusion better, and won't require any sort of offsetting, assuming your printer's extrusion is calibrated correctly. Different materials will also need different extrusion multipliers as well though, to deal with thermal expansion in the melt zone! So a trick I use is to print something like a360.co/2V6bF3D this dimensional check block I created, which is a fast, easy print. Measure the thickness of each step over to ensure the printer is making 10mm steps /regardless of overextrusion/, then reduce flow override in your slicer until the blocks measure in multiples of 10mm. It's overkill for most applications, maybe, but if you need to hit dimensions, and not just guess during modeling, it's the best way to do it. I can consistently get within 0.01mm of modeled dimensions in ABS, PLA, and PC/PBT, on my delta, using these tricks. Side note: KISSlicer Premium will eventually allow the importing of STEP models, which will entirely eliminate the errors from circle deviation!

[@Clough42]

I fixed the OctoPrint problem that was causing the blobbing. Now that the holes are smooth, I measured with pins and found the holes all almost exactly 0.013" undersized. That's 0.33mm. Oh, interesting... The one I measured was printed with 0.35mm layers. I went back and added an adjustment parameter to the formula, and they're all right on now.

[@Clough42]

The outside dimension is pretty much perfect in this case, now that I fixed the blobbing; this printer is very well tuned. The issue is filament behavior around the hole interiors.

[@chris-tg6ki]

@@Clough42 Get yourself one of these from amazon 5017718991105 little pocket book laminated pages, will help cross reference stuff faster, one of the best and cheapest of tools.

[@filisoft]

Instead of doing all those construction lines to set equal spacing between holes, an easier way is to just put construction circles, one between every two neighbor holes, tangent to both. Then constrain them all equal. Add another one between the outer edge circle and one of the holes to make the spacing between holes equal to the spacing to the edge.

[@JoeyG1973]

Offset to object, not distance. That means that anytime you change the outer circle the inner circle would remain the same distance away.

[@pentachronic]

I did a similar project to this and decided that 100% infill was better. As it happens the 100% infill was faster because it didn't have to do z-hops all the time. It also makes a really strong part. Maybe this would work for you too ?

[@Clough42]

Not at all. Filling 100% makes it way slower and uses lots more material. My printer isn't configured to z-hop at all.

[@calaban9]

Might I suggest parameters for the original diameter and inner offset. That way it’s easier to play with values to get that inter hole space a little more controllable for the full.

[@Clough42]

Yeah. I went back and implemented several suggestions, including this one.

[@ryanokeefe12]

Complexity of the stl vs gcode has nothing to do with surface finish. Don't make assumptions. Gcode is a series of xyz steps. For a circle, the more steps, the smoother the movement. It's win you have sharp corners that you get ringing etc. Id say you either have filament that has absorbed to much water or you're extrusion ratio is too low.

[@Clough42]

My hunch turned out to be correct. It was, indeed, a problem with the GCODE flow through OctoPrint. This is a known issue. Smoother circles mean there are many more lines of GCODE to feed to the printer in the same amount of time, and sometimes OctoPrint gets behind, so the printer pauses for a moment, waiting for more data, and it leaves a blob. Removing one problematic plugin completely fixed it and I can run at max detail again with a glassy-smooth surface.

[@yanwo2359]

@@Clough42 Please show us. Very interesting. And I'm very interested in the use of form taps in Al.

[@ligius3]

I'm not sure, but I think the delay in Fusion it's because it tries to calculate the closed geometries, just a hunch. I usually run the drill in reverse to bore out the holes. My 3d printer now has the same finish, even though it had a perfect finish one month ago. One of the belts is stretched and needs replacing, it cannot be tightened anymore.

[@Clough42]

Same deal here. A month ago, I installed octodash and a bunch of OctoPrint plugins. Turning all that stuff off fixed the problem. Of course, not until after uploading the video...

[@helgew9008]

That finish problem looks exactly like the problem I have with OctoPrint. It would be interesting to see if it makes a difference if you print the same G-code file directly from SD card.

[@Clough42]

Yeah, I think its octoprint causing the issue. I fiddled with the SD card a bit today, but apparently I didn't turn on support when I built the printer firmware. Ugh.

[@paigashaona2331]

@@Clough42 To me it looks like overextrusion, but it might be pauses caused by the printer not being able to handle short line segments. Have you tried another slicer, like KISSlicer, to see if another slicer will lower the amount of commands sent to the printer firmware? I know that's a KISS option. I haven't messed with Simplify simply because I didn't like the print quality I saw from others on it, so I can't speak as to what it does.

[@slarti42uk]

Hi James, I had similar when I recently started using Simplify3D. Do you print outside in for the perimeters? I found swapping to outside in gave better surface finish and dimensional accuracy. However I guess it could just be masking another problem such as over extrusion.

[@kylegriffiths9005]

No stl?

[@shamanking5195]

is it possible to put a magnet so sticks to a metal surface ???

[@Clough42]

Yeah, that would be easy to do. Of course, the chips would stick to it, too, which might undo the convenience.

[@kaiser0050]

What 3D printer/setup do you use?

[@Clough42]

In this video, I was using a kit-built printer from MakerFarm that I have modified extensively. MakerFarm is unfortunately no longer in business.

[@medienmond]

Please Share the metric Drill Guide. I allways searched for something Like that and IT will be some time to redesign this thing. Time better spemd on my Girls...

[@ColtaineCrows]

My print.. I don't even have a paper printer actually nvm.

[@Tristoo]

why not undersize the holes and tap them? they'd hold the tap better and probably not wear as much (bigger more uniform contact area with the tap). I'd probably go as far as to make hardened steel sleeves for the holes, but at that point y'know, might as well just machine the whole thing.

[@jonprescott7399]

If you were buying a 3D printer today, which one would you buy? I think i need one.

[@richardcurtis556]

It's no coincidence that there is a drill for each tap size.

[@russellhayward2359]

I got his humour on that......

[@stevebird8407]

Form tap on Ali jig plate???

[@Clough42]

It's actually 6061-t6511. And yes. Form taps make excellent threads in aluminum.

[@MrRShoaf]

I think I would have just machined it. Aluminum body polished up real nice, anodized one color for metric, another color for regular. Perhaps make 4. Fine or course threads in each. Use press in or glue in liners either off the shelf or make them on the lathe and heat treat them. You can also up the cool factor a bit, add some knurl for grip, and engrave for the sizes. How about making it in three pieces? The base would house the tap and the drill(s) for each size. A center hole in the tap guide would allow the threaded rod affixed to the cap to threaded hole in the base. This way all of your tapping stuff stands at the ready and can be tucked away in the tool box for next time.

[@Clough42]

Machining out of metal would be great, but I didn't want to mess around with a bunch of different drills in the CNC--especially the smaller ones. Lots of people are concerned about how long it will last, but the whole point is I designed it in a few minutes and it printed while I did something else. If it only lasts one use, I can hit print again. It's pennies of plastic.

[@t3kb0i86]

@@Clough42 mmm. no drill. no drill. --> bore.....

[@Clough42]

@@t3kb0i86 yeah... Boring is great for the larger holes. I don't want to try to bore a .128" hole an inch deep.

[@MrRShoaf]

@@Clough42 I get it, you wanted to play with the 3D printer. A worthwhile cause in itself, but tools hold a special place in my thinking, and most plastic is temporary. Love your videos, keep up the good work.

[@orange-micro-fiber9740]

Regarding the holes being small, I know you're using simplify 3d but cura 4.6 seems to have a hole horizontal expansion you might like. Chuck goes over it here kzbin.info/www/bejne/i4bInX-Qq6mYorc

[@billkellogg1403]

My machine shop teacher called it a “tap handle”, and also a “die stock”.

[@Clough42]

I'll be using a tool from Starrett that they call a "Tap Wrench". www.starrett.com/category/111607

[@johnalexander2349]

We live in the damn future. Or is that something that only non-3D-printer-owners say when they see 3D printing...

[@h1ght0wer]

Nope, as an owner of a 3D printer, I can confirm I also think we live in the future

[@xenonram]

Make one that you can press drill bushings into. Filament 3d printing is still as crappy as it was 10 years ago. That just means the technology has plateaued, and it'll will never get any better. It's not just yours that looks bad.

[@Clough42]

It has its limitations, but I generally get smooth, glossy surfaces. This particular issue is a new one for me. I'll figure it out.

[@johnnyxr6t]

The blobs are print setting nothing to do with the STL file ! Check out www.simplify3d.com/support/print-quality-troubleshooting/blobs-and-zits/

[@Clough42]

I solved the problem. It was caused by plugins in OctoPrint that were interrupting the flow of GCODE to the printer. The same GCODE file now prints beautifully.

[@kooldoozer]

Plastic is NOT something I would make a tapping block out of. I have one that I inherited from a veteran toolmaker, made from tool steel. I doubt yours will make it to heirloom status. But hey, everyone has different degrees of what is useful to them.

[@Clough42]

The material doesn't determine whether it's useful...only for how long.

[@LewisRawlinson30]

Why didn't you delete the 2" dimension and drive the web between the holes to .1"? Then you'd have exactly the same spacing. Also, there's no reason to put in all these construction lines. Just put in tangential dimensions between adjacent holes and set them to .1". I feel like you've taken a very simple task and complicated it for no reason.

[@MyTubeSVp]

Glad to oblige : my printer is WAY better than yours ! 😉

[@jescheffler]

SO much better than yours...

[@GroovyDrifter]

My printer is better than yours. :o)

[@Clough42]

I've got bad news for you: I found and fixed the problem.