Side handle for snow shovel

thingiverse

A secondary handle is great for ergonomics when shoveling snow. Or anything else! Also useful for other long handled tools. Inspired by the Stout Backsaver Grip attachment (http://www.backsavergrip.com/, $14), found in a laudatory review at http://thesweethome.com/reviews/best-snow-shovels/. UPDATE: the one I printed snapped fairly quickly. I recommend using the Customizer to increase the wall thickness and printing in ABS. UPDATE: I have reworked the SCAD file to be very slightly more understandable, and increased the default wall thickness, made the screw holes fit better, and added in a mode to allow for split printing. Instructions Customize the handle to fit your needs. You have two options. You can try to print it in one piece, or you can print two halves and solvent bond or glue them together. If printing in one piece, the default options requires a fair bit of support to print. To reduce the necessary support, get rid of the handle hole, remove the handle flange, and set the clamp length to be the same as the handle diameter. The black handle in the gallery was printed as above, but with a handle flange. It was made in PLA and with too thin walls. It snapped on first trial. I have reworked the model to allow for split printing, which will give you the top half to print. This version does not require any supports unless you want a hole in the handle. Print two of them and glue or solvent bond them together. There are holes for alignment pins set in the mating surface; place snippets of filament in the holes to help you align the parts during gluing. The red handle was printed in ABS with 5mm walls, and it works much better. The ugliness of the joint was because I could not completely eliminate warping so the gap was pretty big in places. I stuffed it with as much ABS glue as I could and that filled the gaps pretty well. Printing in ABS can be difficult. Because you want to print at 50% infill or greater for strength, it will want to pull up and warp. There are one layer height tabs on the corners to help them stick to the bed; cut them off with a sharp knife before gluing. This can be a real test of your ABS anti-warping skills. Make sure your bed is leveled and at the right height, and use whatever measures you find necessary. Clamping requires four #10 screws, nuts, and washers (screw hole dimensions can be adjusted, but you will have to look up the proper diameter). Wingnuts and wingnut screws make attaching easier.