If you have seen some of my previous posts, you know that I paint little plaster houses. While I was painting a new set of houses, I decided it would be nice if I had a paintbrush holder. Yes, I could have purchased one on Amazon, but what is the fun in that. I decided to design a paintbrush holder that looked like a house. The size was not important as long as I could print the design on my 3D printer. The base is 120 mm or 4.724 inches x 120 mm x 8 mm. It provided the design with enough weight and support to prevent it from tipping over. This is the final version of the design in Tinkercad. It was tweaked several times for printing. Paintbrush Holder – Tinkercad

If I printed the design as shown in the picture, it would require a lot of support. My first attempt to print, I split the design into two pieces; roof and building. The roof I selected the Support Type of Tree. There is a lot that can go wrong with printing something for hours and hours, however the roof printed beautifully, and the supports detached easily.

The next print was the bottom piece. Again, a lot can go wrong when something prints for hours and hours and hours. First, after 12 hours the printer would not allow me to pause the print. Second, when the print finished the build plate did on return to its lower position, so extra filament built up on its final print location. Third, the support around the railing was impossible to remove without damaging the railing, which was 2mm in diameter. I went back to Tinkercad and tweaked the design.

For the second attempt, I made the railing detachable. With detachable railing, I could lay it flat on the print bed and not use any supports. After it was printed, I could assemble the design.

Front and Back Railing – I printed two copies. Note, I went from round to square railing.

Side Railing – I printed two copies.

Structure – I printed one copy with Normal Supports.

The STL files for this design are available on Thingiverse: House Shaped Paintbrush Holder

Below is the printed version of my new paintbrush holder. It was printed in two different colors because I ran out of the pink filament. The design was easy to assemble, and gluing was not required.