Book Cradle

3D printed book cradle.

FreeCAD Home View

Features

• Free Software.
• Open Source Hardware.
• Design is parametric.
• Can be easily resized for any book sizes, from mass paperback to large dictionaries.
• The book is held at an angle, not flat like most book holders, so as to not strain the spine, especially for old books.
• Book is displayed at a nice angle for reading.
• Very stable base.
• Easy assembly.
• Designed with free software.

FreeCAD

The book cradle is designed with FreeCAD.

• https://www.freecad.org/

Usage

In FreeCAD, the size of the book can be changed. Procedure:

1. Open FreeCAD/bookcradle.FCStd file in FreeCAD.
2. Double click on Cradle in the model tree.
3. The B column in the spreadsheet is used in the design. Change any of these values to change sizes. Note, there are other columns with example numbers that can be used.
4. Go to the bookcradle tab.
5. Go to Macro -> Macros in the menu.
6. Click Open Folder and select the FreeCAD folder of this project.
7. Click attach_plate_left.FCMacro then the Execute button.
8. Go to Macro -> Macros in the menu.
9. Click attach_plate_right.FCMacro then the Execute button.
10. Go to Macro -> Macros in the menu.
11. Click position_datum_plane.FCMacro then the Execute button.

The macros need to be run after some changes to make sure the plates and holes are lined up correctly. You may need to loop through running the macros twice to get everything to line up.

Export

In FreeCAD you need to export the STL files (or other similar format) for 3D printing. To do this, you need to export each part individually.

So in the model tree, select a part and press <spacebar> to view/hide it. Hide all of the parts except the one you want to export. Cycle through hiding all parts except one, then exporting it, and moving onto the next until all four parts have been exported.

Screenshots

FreeCAD Front View

FreeCAD Side View

FreeCAD Rear View

License

Apache License 2.0 - See LICENSE-apache.txt

Copyright © 2026 Jeff Moe