Simple 3D printed bookend to keep your collection tidy
Books on a shelf are great – books falling of a shelf less so. Here is how to 3D print some simple bookends to secure your books.
The open bookshelf
I recently built a set of new bookshelves from oak and black pipe. While I love the open design I quickly realised that I own too many baperback books that do not really support themselves. After getting woken up in the middle of the night by something that felt like a direct meteor hit (who knows what civilization was ended by this falling book…) I decided to do something.
3D printing to the rescue
I looked at some premade bookends online and found nothing too great at a reasonable price. I pondered for a moment to build something from the same oakwood but that would be pretty expensive and take a lot of time. Instead I decided to 3D print some and started searching online for some models.
Using the 3D printer I can print exactly as many pieces as I need and in any color that I have available. Should I ever need a smaller or bigger version I can just scale the existing model and best of all: if you already own a printer it is dead cheap. A couple of cents for the filament and maybe again as much for the electricity.
The right bookend
So I started searching online and found a nice and simple model on Thingiverse. It is strong enough to hold up even the bigger books but still does not take much space. It can also be printed pretty quickly (less than 1 hour) without much material.
I also found some funny Star Wars, Portal and stick men versions but I decided to go with the simple one for now to not steal the show from the awesome shelves. The bookend is pretty simple and can even hold heavier books by using their weight to push them down onto the shelf.
The settings for the print are pretty simple: I printed the bookend laying on its side and used the standard 0.2mm quality profile in Prusa slicer. No additional supports needed.
In the end I printed around half a dozen bookends in black PLA to secure all the books on the shelves. No more free falling books during the night now!
