Protect Your Precious Hazelnutty Chocolatey Goodness with a 3D Printed Nutella Cap Lock

If you’re unfamiliar with Nutella then you’re missing out on a food that is truly a modern wonder. Not only is the hazelnut and chocolate spread one of the most delicious and filling foodstuffs ever made, but it is also a completely nutritious and healthy way to start off the day. Just kidding, the company that makes Nutella used to claim that it was nutritious and healthy until they were sued, then they had to admit that it was basically breakfast frosting. So that crispy toast topped with Nutella is really just an excuse to eat breakfast cake. Yes, it may not be good for you, but all that stuff about it being one of the most delicious and filling foodstuffs ever made is actually totally true. Believe it or not, but a combination of chocolate, hazelnuts, milk and mostly sugar tastes absolutely amazing. Shocking, I know.

Nutella is one of those foods that are so good, that something like this seems totally reasonable. (Well, maybe not to that extent.) Nutella is so good that the promise of any negative health benefits seem less like something that you should be worried about and more like a challenge. “Oh? Eating this entire jar of Nutella may give me heart disease? I’d like to see some citations please.” Then, typically, you would cut the jar in half so you could safely lick every last bit of Nutella out of it. You know how you carefully scrape off any excess mayo or peanut butter back into the jar while making an average sandwich? Well, you sort of do the same thing with Nutella, only instead of the jar you scrape the excess off into your mouth, and just in case you miss any you may need to refill the knife a few times just to be certain that the knife is completely clean.

That isn’t soot smeared on Frodo’s face, it’s Nutella.

In my home Nutella is a little bit like the One Ring from The Lord of the Rings. Using it too much makes you kind of heavy and slow, your skin becomes pale from a noticeable lack of nutritional sustenance and I swear to Eru I will cut the throat of anyone who tries to steal my precious. Naturally with such a valuable resource stored safely in my home leaving the house for any length of time is generally ill advised. Thankfully, as with so many things, when there is a need for something, 3D printing often finds a way to fill it.

Thingiverse user and Nutella fan Fido has felt that cold rush of panic that grips your heart when you’re forced out of the home in order to do annoying things like socialize with other humans, leaving your precious unguarded. But worry not, there will be no more fear of losing any of your precious. No longer can your roommate surreptitiously use some of it on an English muffin, like some sort of barbarian. No, now your Nutella can be totally secured and protected from grubby roommate hands thanks to Fido’s 3D printable Nutella Cap Lock. The cop lock will fit snugly over the top of a typical sized jar of Nutella and then simply needs to be locked into place with a small pad lock.

Fido designed the cap lock using Alibre Design Expert from 3D Systems in about three or four hours, but Fido did need to come back and refine the design once when he miscalculated the wall thickness of the hinge. Which most likely only happened because there was Nutella stuck between the keys on his keyboard, which is totally not a weird thing that occasionally happens to people who eat Nutella. The cap itself consists of three individual pieces that will need to be printed separately, the two sides of the cap lock and the pin that holds them together. Fido 3D printed his cap in White ABS on his original Makerbot Cupcake and then sludge welded the pin in place. But if a different material is used super glue should work just as well to hold everything together.

So go out into the sunlight little Nutella hobbits, you can now keep your precious hazelnut confection safe and secure thanks to the wonders of 3D printing. Just like Frodo, we are finally free of the chocolatey burden of protecting the One Ring, and we won’t even have to get our finger bitten off in order to do it. Unless of course you leave the house with a bit of Nutella on your fingers, then there are no promises.