Maybe you've seen something like this before - this is a comb that fits on the end of a hair dryer, which helps to straighten and de-tangle hair while you blow-dry it. Professionals don't use them much, but not only am I not a professional, trying to blow-dry my own hair (which falls almost to my waist) can get a bit awkward at times. This attachment makes it so much easier.
My hair dryer actually came with one, but it broke, so I made a new one:
What happened was that, because my hair is naturally curly (and I hate curls), it ties itself in knots quite easily, so the hair dryer comb, much like any other comb, would get stuck, then pulled out of the end of the hair dryer and fall onto the floor. Eventually, the little plastic retaining ring moulded into the comb attachment got so badly damaged that it wouldn't stay in place at all:
In case you can't tell what you're looking at, half the ring is missing. My initial solution was to print an external ring to hold the existing attachment. This was a 1 hour, 40 minute build time:
It was supposed to be press-fit on both the comb and the hair dryer itself, but without my fancy machinist's instruments with me (it's tough having two shops in two different locations because neither building has enough room), I couldn't make that work, and instead cut a slit down the middle and held everything together with a leftover hair tie:
Unfortunately, heat has a noticeable effect on both the photo-polymer resin and the rubber in the hair tie, so the second time I used it, I needed to add to more hair ties to keep the attachment from falling off:
Obviously, this wasn't going to last long, either, so I needed a more permanent solution. I drew up another comb attachment, but with some minor changes to it. First, I had no reason to replicate the exact shape of the old one, so I simplified the geometry in the name of laziness. Second, the new attachment fits over the end of the hair dryer barrel, rather than popping into a relief groove. Third, there are no vents on the new design, mostly because I don't like having hot air blown out the side and burning my scalp.
I was pleasantly surprised that, after a seven-hour build time, this thing pulled right off of all the supports, leaving just a few tiny pieces around the bottom edge:
Then again, I'm used to printing tiny, intricate wargamining miniatures, like tanks and sailing ships.
By the time I took both this photograph and the one at the beginning of this post, I had already used it once, which is why some of the fingers are bent. I didn't have heat-resistant resin to print this thing out of. You may notice also that the fingers of the new one are a bit thicker than on the old one - that's on purpose, as I find that thick-fingered combs are much better for de-tangling than regular combs. Here's the attachment in place:
It's easy to install, hard to remove - just as any taper attachment should be. The only change I foresee having to make is the addition of vent holes, since the hair dryer revs up every now and again while I'm using it, due to increased resistance. If it trips the breaker (which it once did when I tried plugging it into the same power strip as my air conditioner), then I'll drill some vent holes in one side - but only one side, since I still don't want my scalp getting burned.
I have a few more household items that I plan to repair or replace with 3D printed objects, so there will be more posts like this in the future.
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