From the Loftsmith Workshop
Refillable notebook cover, A6 to A5 and Half Letter
A hard cover for a notebook you can refill, so the cover stays and only the paper changes. It has a ring on the front edge that holds a pen, and a raised border on the lid. Change the pen size and the paper stack to suit your own notebook.
6 parts · 98 g · 125 × 157 × 33 mm
Ask for the sizes you want to tweak, e.g. “make the width adjustable”.
How to print it
Parts
- spine · PLA · Outer face down, end caps pointing up
About 14 g, 23 min at the defaults. Holds both hinge pins and the bar sockets in its end caps.
- back cover · PLA · Outer face down
About 38 g, 53 min. A textured plate gives the outside finish; the double-rule panel grooves are 45-degree V-grooves that print without supports.
- front cover · PLA · Outer face down, pen loop up
About 41 g, 58 min. Carries the pen loop with its sprung tongue on the fore-edge.
- clamp bar ×3 · PLA · Flat, 5 mm face on the bed
One per paper stack (quantity follows the Number of stacks slider). About 2 g and 7 min each.
Print settings
- Layer height
- 0.2 mm
- Walls
- 2
- Infill
- 15%
- Supports
- None
- Notes
- Everything in PLA. About 101 g and 2 h 40 min for the whole A6 set at 2 walls and 15% infill (the figures on the page). A textured plate gives the covers their finish.
Hardware
- 2 × 1.75 mm filament (any type) as hinge pins · Each about 2 mm shorter than the spine: about 155 mm at A6. Pushed in from the head end until it stops at the closed tail end.
Assembly
- Print the spine, both covers and one clamp bar per paper stack in PLA.
- Lay the back cover against the spine so the knuckles interleave, then push a piece of 1.75 mm filament into the hole at the head end of the spine until it stops at the closed tail end. Cut it flush and seal the head in its small countersink with a touch of a soldering iron or a drop of glue. Repeat
- Fold each stack of about 20 sheets in half and lay a clamp bar inside the fold.
- Start with the stack next to the back cover. Set the fold onto the spine floor between the end caps, bow the middle of the bar sideways (across its thin side) toward the open front, line its pin ends up with a pair of sockets and let it spring straight. The bar pinches the fold against the spine.
- To swap a stack, bow its bar out of the sockets the same way. Push your pen into the loop on the front cover's fore-edge; the sprung tongue near the entry presses it against the far wall.
Good to know
- Checked in the Loftsmith engine only; not printed. Test-fit one clamp bar before printing all of them.
- The hinges are pinned with 1.75 mm filament rather than printed in place, so every part fits the bed. If the covers turn stiffly, run a 2 mm drill through the knuckles.
- Bow the clamp bars sideways, across their thin 2.4 mm side; that keeps the strain within what PLA tolerates for repeated refills.
- Measure your stack flat before folding. The bar is set to pinch the fold 0.2 mm, so very thick or soft paper may need the Stack thickness slider moved by 0.1 to 0.2 mm.
- Each bar is checked in the Loftsmith engine for a 5 N (about 0.5 kg) tug spread along a stack.
- The pen grip relies on the loop printing slightly undersize, as printed holes usually do; if your pen still slides, set the Pen diameter slider 0.2 mm smaller. The tongue is sized for pens up to 0.3 mm over the slider value.
- The hinge barrels take some room: there is about 4 mm of air above the top stack when the book is closed.
- With a single thin stack and a pen over 11 mm, the pen loop can reach below the back cover; use a smaller pen setting or more stacks in that case.
- A6 fits a 180 mm bed. B6, A5 and Half Letter covers need a 256 mm bed.
Comments