This summer we built a porch to our little house and when it was time to lay the boards I came up with this little handy device which lets you screw the board with desired space in between without the risk of losing your tool between the gaps, now I want to share an improved version with you.

Print at least two of each dimension and you can place them at each end of the board and screw it down with perfect gap. We printed 3mm, 4mm and 5mm so we could alter the distance if the boards were crooked or we thought the board would shrink more than it's neighbors. The models are made with Tinkercad and are easy to alter if you want different spacing.

Supplies

All you need for this is a 3D-printer and some filament :)

Here is the link to the tinkercad file, I've never done this myself but you can alter another persons designs right?

https://www.tinkercad.com/things/6S65m1GrOKW-5mmdistance/edit

I'll throw in the STL files for 3, 4 and 5 mm spacers, redy for slicing and printing.

Step 1: (Optional) Alter the Design in Tinkercad

The design consists of a base plate, the spacer itself, text on the bottom (upside when you use it) and the new feature; a wedge at the edge which lets you remove the with e.g. a screwdriver if the spacer gets jammed between two boards.

Step 2: Print the Spacers

I used Prusaslicer to slice them, 20% infill works fine but we accidently broke one of them when it got jammed so you might want to up the infill if you are going mayhem when you are building your porch.

I printed with my trusty old Prusa mk2.5 and used AddNorth E-PLA, which worked great.

I could easily fit 6 in total on my build plate so this is a no-hassle project to do!

Step 3: Use the Spacers

Place one spacer at the end of the board and place tho other one a little bit further down. Press the board against it's neighbor with the spacers between and secure it with a screw. In theory you only need to do this at each end of the board but if your boards are like the ones we bought (a little bit bent), you might want to place the other spacer just a little bit down and then move the spacers to the un-screwed sections of the board and the push it in again and secure. Work your way to the end of your board and then you are done!

Use a screwdriver or anything pointy to remove the spacers if it gets stuck between boards but be careful so you don't scratch the wood too much.

Happy building!