Modular Spice Rack

We needed a spice organizer. I mean, we really needed a spice organizer, as in "during the last week two spice jars fell out of the cupboard".

But since I don't want to change to all the same-looking boxes or jars (even if it looks better) we need a spice rack that fits it all. Very important: It fits it all without having the spice glasses wiggling around.

In our old flat, the landlord provided a metal spice rack on the inside of a cupboard door, which was very handy. But the longer and taller jars wiggled around and made annoying noises, every time someone opened the door a little bit faster...

The spice rack I was looking for needed to be modular, transformable, and nice-looking. Yes, even if it's on the inside of a cupboard, I will see it every time I open the doors.

So the basic design is a shelf where the spice containers will stand with some rods to keep them from falling down.

Material:

• 6mm (~1/4") wooden rods, length depending on your rack width, I needed 3m per double rack
• 3mm (~1/8") sticks
• 20mm (~3/4") mounting tape, depending on the amount of racks you build I needed 1,5m for 3 double racks
• filament of your choice, I used PLA
• black (spray) paint

Tools:

• 3D Printer
• scissors
• wood saw
• brush
• rubber gloves

I first took the 5 main types of spice jars I have and measured the dimensions of the containers, including the unique container for our sugar and cinnamon mix that always needs to be accessible.

I found that I mostly have 2 different heights and 2 different widths. Of course, they are in a cross combination...

So I need a rack that fits all of them but only needs to be printed once.

I even noticed that the descriptions on the containers have different heights, which is annoying when it collides with the bars of the rack. Then you can't read them properly.

Further on, I needed a side boundary to avoid the containers falling out at the sides. I came up with a few (easy) designs and decided to go for the branch with the leaves, since this one is easy, elegant, and fits the spices since most of them were leaves in whatever ways :-)

Since I don't know yet how many big or tall or small containers I will get in the next time, I decided to split each shelf into two parts to be more flexible. Then I can decide if I need the one side for tall and narrow containers, while the other side keeps the big and small boxes.

For my first prototype design an checked the measures I've taken from my spice containers and sketched a side holder in Inkscape. This was very basic, just a few rectangles and circles combined and then imported to TinkerCAD, since I still avoid Fusion (however there was a knot in my brain by using it) and for the simplicity of my "designs" TinkerCAD was fully suitable.

I extruded the imported Inkscape drawing in TinkerCAD and added the flat triangle at the side for better wall contact. I added a baselayer (just copy your design, fill out the holes, extrude it to 2mm and set it beyond the body)

You can then just mirror the design by pressing m (or clicking the mirror button at the top).

I printed the two sides without any additional design to see if the prototype behaves as I would like it. The rods in the prototype are just paper rolls I made by rolling normal paper very tight.

And I was already very pleased.

I then added the leaves in Inkscape and started to smoothen out the design.

I then imported the Inkscape file to TinkerCAD but I know that round shape can be tricky to be imported. So I first enlarged the design in Inkscape for 300%, saved the file and then imported it with 33,3% in TinkerCAD.

You can either import both parts of the design separately or, as I did, import it together and then copy and delete half of the design of each copy.

1. Extrude the frame with the leaves part for 2mm.
2. Extrude the frame part for 6mm.
3. Level the frame part (with the red cone) about 1,9mm above the workplane.
4. Align both frame parts and combine them.
5. Add a blue wedge with fitting dimensions. In my case I wanted the back face to be about 20mm, since my mounting tape is 19mm wide. So my wedge is about 130mm long, 10mm wide and 12,2mm high. Overall this is 22mm in height, but in the step after next, I will "cut" the sharp point to create kind of a chamfer.
6. Combine the wedge with the frame
7. Add a big hole box, place it at 20mm height, and cut off the sharp edge of the wedge.

Voilà ready to be printed.

Unfortunately, I didn't make screenshots of making the extension, but it was a lot of copying and transferring to "box" and "hole" again.

I printed both parts. I was happy that it was fitting perfectly.

And then I decided it is time to change to Fusion 360 and redo it in an even smoother and better way. :-)

Unfortunately, I can't teach you how to use fusion, since I just "learned" it by myself, but there are plenty of good instruction videos on youtube or you can just follow one of the tutorials in Fusion itself. And you can just read my steps to get an impression of what I did.

1. It even didn't work out well to import the .svg file and extrude it, so I used the "line" and "fit point spline" and redraw the whole sketch.
2. Then extrude the whole sketch for 2mm.
3. Extrude now just the frame (without the holes) up to a height of 8mm.
4. Extrude the backside of the frame up to 20mm.
5. Use the fillet option to round it until it's smooth.

You are finished with the frame design.

Now a new sketch for the adapter to extend the rack.

1. Set an offset line at 10mm.
2. Close the area with the "fit point spline". The area needs to cover the offset and the frame part on the right side.
3. Add the 2 holes on the adapter.
4. Extrude the whole area for 2mm.
5. Turn the design about 180° degrees.
6. Extrude the offset about 8mm.
7. Project the three circle holes from the "frame" sketch to your adapter sketch plane.
8. Set an offset of -0.2mm for the three circles.
9. Extrude the 3 circles for 5mm.
10. Now use the fillet option to smooth the edges.

The adapter is done too.

(And I actually didn't know anymore why I was fearing Fusion. Just give it a try ;-)

Now you can print all the parts you need to fit your cupboard.

One rack contains 1x left frame, 1x right frame and 1x middle frame (which consists of two parts)

I measured in my cupboard and calculated, that the length of one rod needs to be approx. 24,5cm (~10")

I measured 1 rod and "build" myself a quick jig with two clamps, so I don't need to measure all the rods before cutting. I just set the next long rod into the jig and the stick guided my handsaw until all rods had the same length.

I first wanted to spray paint all the rods, but it was not that handy, so I preferred to change back to brush and paint.

All rods got 2 coatings of paint. And I let them dry using my prototype frame as a drying rack :-)

Having all rods painted and all parts printed I did a first setup on the inside of the cupboard, only with a little bit tape, just to see if everything fits as wished.

It finally did.

1. Clean the cupboard door and the frames with some rubber alcool.
2. Mark the positions of the shelves.
3. Stick the mounting tape on the backside of your frames.
4. Stick it to the door.
5. Put all 6 rods into the holes and add the right side of the middle frame to the rods.
6. Now it will be a little bit tricky since you need to level the rack and the frame part simultaneously. But with two small water levels, it was quit easy. (but it still took me some time)
7. Stick the left part of the middle frame directly to the right part, you can here level by eye.
8. Then again level with tow water levels to receive a straight rack.
9. First shelf done... Two more to go...

After sticking all your rack parts to the cupboard door you should wait for 24h (or according to the instructions of your mounting tape) before you fill up your new modular spice rack.

You can decide if you want to keep your mix-up on spice containers or change to one specific type.

It's up to you. :-)