Berni. 3D Printed Joint for Beer Bottle Furniture

Our submission for the 3D printing competition is a product for poor college students like ourselves. We wanted to use found material combined with 3D printed parts to create usable and aesthetically pleasing furniture. Since there is no lack of alcohol on colleges campuses, we decided to reuse the structural strength of glass bottles. Our design uses empty beer bottles and scrap wood, leaving the user to only 3D print the joint to assemble the furniture. Thus, we came up with the idea for the project Beer Bottle Furniture.

Step 1: Materials

Berni Joints : Print out from STL file or purchase online

Screws : Wood screw

Beer Bottles : Used Stellar on this project.

Wood Board : Any type of wood with a thickness < 0.8 in.

Step 2: Print Four Berni Joints

Download our Berni Joint from Thingiverse or Pre-Order from the Berni Website (to see how much interest there is for this). Print four of these joints. Since these are small joints, they will fit on any sized 3D printer. The infill isn't too picky, use whatever settings are best for your setup.

Step 3: Prepare Beer Bottles

You should probably wash the bottles before you use them. Depending on aesthetic preference, you can keep the label on or remove it.

Step 4: (Optional) Decorate Beer Bottle

There are many ways to decorate the beer bottles. We chose to paint it, but you can add highlighter fluid, marbles, lights, etc. You can design your own bottle and its look.

Step 5: Prepare & Decorate Board

The board that everything rests on can be found in scrap bins or bought online. We got this one on Amazon, which is a perfect size for our laptops or as a shoe rack. If you have access to power tools, you can cut the boards to whatever length you need. If you are feeling creative, you can laser engrave the surface, use a router to engrave your name, or many other modifications to add more flair to your furniture piece.

Step 6: Assemble!

The four 3D printed parts are attached to the tops of the bottles to provide a attachment point for the board. The board is placed in the middle of the 3D printed parts and screwed down to prevent the board from moving. That's it! The bottles have very high strength, but this is not to be used as a chair or be overburdened by too much of your stuff. Have fun with your new piece of furniture which tells all who see it that you are resourceful, fun, and engineering minded!

Step 7: Find Use Cases!

We can use Berni furniture in many places. Standing desk, shoe racks, etc. You name it!

If you like our work, we've set up a website to showcase some of our future designs and improvements to our current one. We would also love to hear your improvements and ideas to this project! If you like this idea, please vote for it in the 3D printing challenge so that we could make more of our projects and prototypes!