A sink stopper by Assafl

Last crawled date: 2 years, 11 months ago

A sink stopper. A minor thing really. But I lost mine.
It was Italian. A work of beauty that had a perfect union with the sink hole. After many an aftermarket stoppers were summarily rejected by the prudish Italian sink hole for being too big, too small, or simply mismatched on their interference plane I set on a quest to design a "perfect" sink stopper.
Unfortunately, there are no compendiums or seminal anthologies on sink stoppers. No "Sink Stopper Research Bulletin". No "Sink Stoppers 6th Edition" for $389 + S&H published by Addison Wesley. No. Zilch.
This is like Sushi - family secrets of sink stopper designs. I am on my own.
3 courageous attempts it took to conquer the stopper mountain. It wasn't easy.
Attempt 1: A "plug" with knob. Left most stopper in the picture.
Easy to use. Since sink hole isn't 100% round - it doesn't seal nor stay put.
Worse, it is hollow so it floats. It seems sink stoppers are supposed to stay at the bottom of the sink. I suppose I could fill 100% and print using NinjaFlex - but I use a Bowden...
Attempt 2: Hollow from top. Water pushes stopper down. Middle stopper in the picture.
Yay. Seal is okay but some leakage occurs. Interference angle with sink hole is finicky.
Final attempt: Outrageous success (Yay). Right most stopper in the picture.
Rounding the mating surfaces means the sidewalls are thinner, enabling the water pushing down to force the stopper into a full seal. Just enough compliance to force a fit between the stopper and the sink hole. It seals really well!!!
Additional features: Indented knob ensures that cloths being manually laundered don't pry the stopper accidentally. Knob is also tapered making it easy to lift even with soapy water/hands.
It works really well.
Saga over.
Aftermath: 3 YO finds stopper and says "Oh Red". Stopper is gone again. Next version is tethered.
Print movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AWSphQ6Amo