I’ve been frustrated by how to manage my silhouette markers. I’ve got the old Warsenal double-sided ones, stuffed in an empty plastic card box. The S4/S7 marker has some weak magnets in the base and marker component because together it’s just too big to conveniently pack away. I’d considered going back and doing the same to the rest of the markers, decided I’d rather do it with fresh ones, realized Warsenal doesn’t sell the double-sided ones any more, and gave up on that idea.

So, over the weekend, I got into TinkerCAD and worked out a set of markers that could fit into each other to minimize the hassle.

Started out by clustering them into base sizes and considering the volume of the “smaller” sizes as constituent parts of the “larger” ones.

The core idea was that if I wanted an S1, for example, I’d use the S1. If I wanted an S2, I’d flip the 25mm tall S1 marker over and stack the 15mm S2 marker onto it, producing the 40mm tall volume the S2 requires.

Then, assuming they’re hollow (for the smaller sizes to fit in), I iterated over a couple of wall widths that would be sturdy enough but also allow for the smaller base sizes to fit inside. Settled on 4mm wide, but with a 3mm deep x 2mm wide lip. The bottom/top of each was also 3mm, except for the top of the S5, which had to have an additional ring to accommodate the S6 marker. When in doubt, I erred on the side of thickness.

I could have shaved the internal volume of the S5 a bit more aggressively, maybe, but to no point. Although the only wonky thing is that the S1+S2 markers don’t fit perfectly into the S3+S5, there’s no way I could have gotten them to fit perfectly: the base and top would have had to be 2.5mm thick on the S3 & S5, and I think it would have been too risky for the S5. Everything overall does fit into the S4+S7, though, which was the whole point of the exercise.

Although I’m printing off a few copies for folks for a few bucks, I also put the STLs up on Cults for $5.

Here’s the final product. I’m extremely pleased with the results.