Saturday 15 December 2018

Stick Blender Splat Guard

I bought a cheap $19.99 Stick Blender (Big W) to primarily make my own home made healthier mayonnaise using free range eggs and either Olive Oil or Avocado Oil.

This guard was in response to my first use of this particular brand. I'd used one before but it didn't cover me, my t-shirt and kitchen surrounds in oil and egg yolk resulting in a 20 minute clean up.


Here's a link to the recipe I found, that claimed and delivered, a thick creamy mayo.

https://nourishedkitchen.com/avocado-oil-mayonnaise/









I got out my design pad and measured everything, then designed something that would sit flat on my printer bed for printing and not need any supports. Mainly because I was going to print in 3DFillies PLAflex so I could design in a slit in the lid, so I could fit and bend it around the stem of the blender.




While I have any number of print bases like Ultrabase etc I'm not that keen to swap print surfaces as that entails a Z-Stop adjustment and I really didn't feel like doing that. :-)

My regular bed is some Borosilicate glass with some pei glued to it.





The print turned out quite nicely...................after the 3rd attempt lol
It seems my math skills and ability to measure things and do it to a shape on half the of profile design to then lathe around 360 degrees was clearly lacking :-)
If you add 3 mm on one side the total width ends up 6 mm larger and while I understood this before I started I still got it wrong twice.

The container has a pouring spout that I needed to allow for and a lip around the top I took advantage of to make the lid clip onto.





Pei and flex material get on so well you actually have to put an intermediate layer of something like glue-stick so you can remove your print after it has finished printing.
While I did this getting the print off was difficult and left a mess on the print itself which I washed off with warm water. Due to my impatience with everything, the first layer didn't turn out as nicely as I wanted. It was acceptable to me as this is for my own use and if you know me you'll know I don't fuss so much over visual details and am more interested in nice practical design.

That's not to say it isn't a part of my goal but it also isn't the end all, or be all, of 3d printing as far as I'm concerned.






The lip snaps on with a satisfying click and is close enough to the lip to fit well and still allow spill free pouring. 

Note:- You couldn't pour the mayo I made, this stuff could fill cracks in plaster, it was so thick  ;-D







You can see the split where you can bend it to fit onto the shaft of the blender.





It has yet to be used in a real life mayo making frenzy but I'm pretty confident that all the cleaning and the load of washing machine clothes and Tea towels has been a lesson that not all stick blenders are the same or even act the same. The other one I once used, required you to lift the blender way too high to make such a mess but this one doesn't really need the same kind of lift to do the same job lol





For something that only cost $20.00 aud  and will only get used occasionally I'm pretty happy with everything now!

Link to the stl here