3D Printed Welding Mask Hook

Hey everyone, I am Eric Ling, a Mechanical Engineering student from San Jose State University! I am the secretary for our university's American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) club . This is a personal project, and I designed this to create a more convenient/accessible storage solution for the welding masks in my club's office space.

Required Materials:

• 3D Printer Access
• Fusion 360, and a system that can run it
• PLA or a 3D printable filament of your choice
• Slicer software (such as Cura)
• A phillips or flathead screwdriver
• Screws (size of your choice)

To start this project, I first needed some dimensions of the object I was trying to mount, which in this case was a welding mask. These dimensions included the length, width, and height of the mask, as well as the weight of the welding mask. It was also important to take into account where the hook would be attached to the welder’s mask, and dimension the welder’s mask accordingly.

Next, I had to create a side profile of the welding mask hook to extrude and generate a solid from. This can be done by using the sketch button on the toolbar at the top of Fusion 360. Recalling the length and height of the hook necessary to mount the welding mask, and using them to dimension the overall length and height of the hook. At this stage, I could then implement filets on the hook through the profile sketch, or implement the filets after extruding the profile. For my welding mask hook, I chose to implement the filets using sketch filets. Finally, I needed to extrude the side sketch profile that I had created. For this project, I had made my hook 15 millimeters wide. Greater thickness could help to support larger objects, while a lesser thickness could be suitable for smaller or lighter objects.

If you are mounting your 3d printed hook using screws, you can either use the hole command featured in Fusion 360, or use extruded cuts as I have used in my design. Knowing that the #8 screws I use are approximately 4.25 mm in diameter. I created 4.325 mm holes through the back of the hook, and 9 mm holes through half of the hook in order to fit both the screw head and a screwdriver.

In order to 3d print the welding mask hook, I would need to have a file that the 3d printer can interpret, such as a Gcode file. To create the Gcode file, I would export the hook as an STL file from Fusion 360, and then open the STL using Cura. Then, I increased the infill setting to 60% to ensure that the hook can support the weight of the welder’s mask. If your hook is intended for a heavy object, a greater infill setting may be necessary. Finally, I sliced the model and exported the hook from Cura as a Gcode file, and sent this file to my 3d printer. From here, I could then begin 3d printing.

When the hook was completely finished printing, I then mounted it into a wall using #8 screws as I had planned to ensure that the welding mask could fit onto it. When I confirmed that they would, I printed a few more welding mask hooks to complement the first one as well as have some mounting space for additional welding masks.