The Story

Once I completed the first corner joint of my Salad Fork build, I lifted the corner to inspect the alignment and listened with horror as 15 preloaded nuts bounced off a messy craft room hardwood floor and to parts unknown.

A reasonable person would have considered them lost and pulled more from the parts bin, but it was late and I was not reasonable.

I searched for and found all but ONE nut, but with significant time wasted. (The final nut showed up two days later, begging to be welcomed back to the family)

NEVER AGAIN!

Imagine…using gravity to help you preload nuts like a dollar-store knockoff of a Connect Four game instead of fearing it.

Imagine…instead of having a panic over the sound of sliding nuts, smugly knowing that your nuts don't go ANYWHERE without your consent.

Model details

These plugs are designed to either press in perpendicular to the mounting face of the extrusion, or from the end in places where you will need to lay the extrusion flat on a surface.

It works best with a TPU in the 80s range of durometer. The 82A I have on hand worked very well and an 85A (like NinjaFlex) would likely as well. 95A TPU is a bit stiff, but will get the job done if the 80 band is difficult to print. 95A works less well in the “lie-flat” case, so scaling down some in that dimension to compensate might help.

I printed without any infill, and two perimeters. I never needed more than about 16 at once while building my Salad Fork.

May you enjoy the serenity of well-managed nuts.