Door Hook - 2 Styles - For Towels, Clothes, etc.

These are door hooks that mount to the face of a door, to provide a method for hanging towels, clothes, etc. There are two styles -- Rounded and Squared (see the photos of the individual hooks; note that the nails or brads are not yet installed in these photos). They are designed to mount on the face of a door (or other surface, as needed), using strong double-sided mounting tape and a thin nail or brad. Note that the load bearing capacity of these hooks when installed is mostly related to the strength and adhesion of the mounting tape; the tape will likely fail before the hooks, if printed horizontally, laying on their side.

These are a replacement for hooks on a bathroom door, which are old and brittle. As with many interior doors in houses, the door is semi-hollow. The nail or brad pierces through the face of the door and helps take pressure off of the adhesive mounting tape. The hooks have a guide hole for the nail or brad. The guide hole may need to be enlarged to accommodate thicker nails. The nail or brad doesn't need to be longer than ~30mm.

Print info:     PLA, 100% infill, supports, 0.4mm nozzle, 0.2mm layer height, 3 perimeters (x, y, & z).

I printed these hooks horizontally so that the layers would enhance the strength of the hook. These hooks are quite strong, even with printing in PLA. The squared hook seems to be a stronger than the Rounded hook because it has more material. The Squared hook more closely resembles the original hooks that these hooks replace, except that I reinforced these new hooks to have greater strength at the critical stress point. 

These hooks could possibly be printed upright, but I didn't try that orientation because I think that they would lose some strength, but I could be wrong. I would avoid printing them with the model oriented on their back surface; this would place layer lines at the bottom/back of the hook arc, where there is the most stress on the hook, and failure would be likely -- this is the location where the original hooks fail. Due to the nature of the models, regardless of the print orientation, supports are needed. I tried different options for support styles, and found that the Rounded hook prints a little better than the Squared hook, in terms of scarring from support material. I sanded off the roughness from where the support material was in contact with the model.

Installation:

• Make sure the nail or brad that you are using will fit through the guide hole without splitting the hook, and also that it is long enough to pierce the face of the door. If you have a fine drill bit, you could pre-drill the nail hole through the door material, making sure that the drilled hole is not larger in diameter than the thickness of the nail or brad.

• Position the hook where you want it, and lightly mark the door (you can use removable tape for this, or a fine mechanical pencil).

• Apply a strong double-sided adhesive mounting tape to the back of the hook -- cover as much of the back as possible (trim off excess tape).

• Position and adhere the hook to the door.

• Carefully tap in the nail.