Keyvolution
I somehow managed to lost the key for the sliding door to my kitchen. It probably fell into a trash bag, which I sometimes hang on the knob of said door when they are full and ready to throw away.
Of course I have newer locked the door until now, but robbed of the possibility to do so, I was overcome by a sudden urge to be able to lock the if need should arise.
The boring way to get a new key, would probably have involved taking a picture of the lock, show it to a locksmith and hope to find a fitting key.
But since we have build a 3D-printer a couple of month ago and "missing" keys had been printed successfully already, I wanted to try to design and print a new kitchen key.
After measuring the dimensions of the keyhole I started designing the new key in HeeksCAD. After only 3 not so perfect key designs I managed to print a really nice looking, working, new key for my kitchen door.
Here you can see a progress of the design:
From left to right: First design in HeeksCAD | final design as .stl in HeeksCAD | Printpath preview in skeinforge with raft and support structure.
The printed keys: