Wood Pyrex Container Lids
Glass pyrex containers are great for storing food, but they come with these plastic lids that deteriorate and crack overtime. I thought it would be neat to make my own lids out of wood, and I started down this path a year ago to figure out how to make it work.
The first lid design was a basic shape that sort of “locked” onto the top of the glass container. I was taking advantage of the slightly oval shape of the container, which you can see in the video below:
This design worked when the wood was stable..but wood isn’t stable — especially when you put some moist food underneath it, and stick it in a cold humid environment like a refrigerator. The lid would significantly warp, or swell up to the point where it was incredibly difficult to get off. Even so, I used these lids for a while and put up with these issues.
Eventually I got around to playing with the idea some more, and decided to combine some 3d printing with the wood lid to make a seal. This isn’t a new idea: there are a lot of wood lids that you can buy that do this, and frequently they are made out of a pretty stable wood, like bamboo, to avoid swelling and warping. I have one from Ikea that we got a few years ago; it does warp after a while, but it isn’t too bad.
I addressed the warping issue with a sliding dovetail on the bottom of the lid. The dovetail was glued in at the middle to allow the wood to expand and contract. A slotting bit was put in my router table, and I could rout a groove around the edge of the lid to fit in a 3d printed gasket. The gasket was printed out of TPU, which is flexible, but it took quite a few experimentations to get just the right size that worked well enough.
“Eat Me” is a play on Alice in Wonderland.
You can download my digital files for this project here: Digital Files for Wood Pyrex Lids – CNC and 3D Printing. I was going to charge $5 for the files, and someday I might, but currently it is set as a free download.
The engravings are all done with my VBit Inlay plugin for Autodesk Fusion. I just set it to NOT generate a plug.
“Mongo is Appalled” and “Doddammit Donut” are from Dungeon Crawler Carl. The audiobooks for this are fabulous!
