Wooden Cup Holder

Wooden cup holder, very easy to make.

I take a cup of tea from the cafeteria in the university often. But it is always too hot to carry to the classroom.

So I made my own cup holder!

I used Inkscape for designing, and laser cutter for producing.

Here is the instructions of how to use the cup holder :)

Draw a rectangle as a base of the cup holder.

To decide the size, calculate the size of a cup.

I usually take a cup which is, H: 10cm, bottom diameter: 5.5cm, top diameter: 9cm.

I calculated the circumference of bottom and top which were 17.27cm and 28.26cm.

Sometimes I take a smaller cup, so I designed a cup holder a little bit smaller than size for the larger cup. Thanks to the living hinge function, it is flexible to some extent :)

I drew a rectangle which height is 6cm, width is 20cm.

Make tabs

Draw a ellipse which size is height 6mm, width 5mm and duplicate four.

Place five ellipses in the left edge of the rectangle. The line of the rectangle's edge should be come to slightly right of the centre of each ellipse, so that when you interlock tabs and slots, it hold each other.

Select the rectangle and ellipses and make them as path (Path> Object to Path).

Union rectangle and ellipses by using union function (Path> Union).

Make slots

Duplicate a cup holder design and place it in the right edge of the original design (grey one in the photo).

Select both and make slots by using differences (Path> Differences).

If you don't have living hinge (Extension> Render> Living hinge), add living hinge in extension, download the extension file (Living Hinge Creator) and copy living_hinge.inx and src/living_hinge.py to your extension directory. There are many instructions how to install living hinge (e.g., How to install Extensions on Mac).

Create a rectangle which width is a little bit smaller than the first rectangle to make the part to bend.

I made mine as height 6cm, width 18.5cm.

Place the new rectangle in the middle.

Select the new rectangle and draw the cut lines by using Living hinge function (Extension> Render> Living hinge). I used the original setting of living hinge.

After you create living hinge, remove the new rectangle.

Set width of all the lines as 0.02mm for laser cutting (Object> Fill and Stroke)

I used 3mm MDF to make my cup holder.

Laser cut your design and finish!

Tabs and slots hold each other and keep the ring shape.

When you use it, you should make it as ring first, and put your cup in the ring. It might look small for a cup, but living hinge function makes it flexible. It will fit nicely on your cup!

Enjoy teatime :)