Cat Condo / activity scratching Pole repair kit. (For owners of fat cats)

cults3d

Having a pair of cats which are both on the biggish side (Norwegian Forest Cat and a Forest cat / Maine Coon cross), our cat scratchers and activity trees take a bit of a hiding. Recently, one of the nest baskets departed company from the rest of the structure and crashed earthwards with 9Kg of indignant cat following it. The construction of these pieces of furniture is pretty poor really, with the plastic inserts simply stapled into place through the cardboard tubes. The staples eventually tore out, allowing the tube to separate. I've set about making a repair kit as the cardboard tubes used in these things all seem to be of a similar size. The kit consists of a printed insert which is a snug fit inside the tube, together with a drilling jig which allows accurate and neat drilling of the cardboard tube, allowing for a strong repair. The insert may be simply glued inside the tube or a more engineered solution is to drill and secure with M4 screws. The components use the original M10 x 30mm pan head screws but you will need to obtain some standard M10 nuts as well as some M4 x 20mm screws to secure the insert unless you want to glue them in. You only need to print one jig and then print as many inserts as you need. V1.1 is approx 54mm diameter and V1.2 is 53mm diameter. One of my poles had stretched at the end when I measured it and the larger insert was a bit too tight. I reduced the diameter and it fitted perfectly but I left the original here in case someone found it useful. Probably this isn't going to be utilised by many folk but I guess if one other finds it useful, it's worth sharing. Comments welcome.