Spiral Fidget Cutting Tool

I created a thin walled solid body (0.4mm thick) that can be used to “cut” any model into a “spiral fidget” shape. You can mix different “inside” and “outside” shapes to make interesting combos. The examples provided are an “inside” sphere and a “outside” cone.

The cutting tool is about 50mm in diameter and 100mm tall. The “outside” object needs to be greater (60+?) than 50mm in diameter, it does not need to be round, but bigger than 50mm in every horizontal direction. The “inside” object can somewhat smaller.

If you create a custom widget, please post a make.

Usage:

1. Load an object into your mesh editing tool.
2. Load the cutting tool
3. Position the cutting tool so the top and bottom both extend out of the object
4. Perform a “cut” (boolean operation) [Fusion 360 “Combine” feature in “cut” mode)

You should get two bodies, keep the ones you want. You can combine two different objects into one fidget set by keeping the “inside” of one and the “outside” of another, see example above.

Tutorial for using PrusaSlicer:

Steps:

1. Start with a blank project
2. Import your target model for cutting
3. Use the “Add Negative Volume” >> “Load…” [context menu]
4. Choose the cutting tool file, 3MK, STL or STEP
5. Position the cutting tool (e.g. center) and make sure the cutting tool extends down past the bottom of the target object (z of 49 usually works) [drag with mouse, Move tool, and/or Object Manipulation in the sidebar]
6. “Export as STL/OBJ” [context menu]
7. Delete the object [context menu, delete key]
8. “Import STL” the file you exported [CMD-I or main File menu]
9. “Split" >> "To Objects” [context menu]
10. Print, export, share

Note: PrusaSlicer can fail to export with negative volumes sometimes, there's not much you can do. It is a known limitation and I don't know of any workarounds. I usually use Fusion 360 in these cases. Note: OracaSlicer, SuperSlicer and other forks of PrusaSlicer have the exact same issue.

Tutorial for Fusion 360:

coming soon!