Soil Block Tongs

Summary Soil blocks are a method of raising seedlings in blocks of compressed soil instead of using pots. The idea is that the soil block can be inserted into a larger soil block as the seedling grows and eventually the whole block can be planted in the garden with minimal disturbance to the plant's root system. The smallest soil blocks are 3/4" cubes which can be a bit fiddly to handle without them disintegrating on you. These tongs are designed to pick up the smallest soil blocks by supporting them on all sides. This thing was made with Tinkercad. Edit it online https://www.tinkercad.com/things/en9jhNmmKlW

Instructions I recommend using ABS as PLA may be too brittle to survive flexing. It is a bit of a tricky print. The handle part of the tongs is printed as two towers joined at the top. I found that supports were not necessary and didn't really work at that height anyway. The biggest problem is that the print head drags on the towers which act like levers on the base. Without good bed adhesion the print will easily tear itself loose. A good solid raft is a must. The two 'winglets' on the outer corners are for added stability to help prevent the towers wobbling as they are built. They can be broken off once complete. Print at 100% fill. Make sure you are getting good layer adhesion. If you have a print cooling fan then it could be useful to cool the print once it gets above the paddles. The handles are small and if the ABS hasn't cooled enough between layers then it tends to drag on the print head.