Whether you need to melt ice on your driveway, feed your plants, or print an impromptu storage-thing-with-handle, this 3D printed salt shaker can do it all!

This design consists of three parts: a scoop, a shaker body, and a cap. The body has a handle and two threaded ends that fit the cap/scoop for storage when not in use.

The optional cap keeps the contents dry when not in use.

This design is easy to print, assemble, and use.

Printing

1. Print in your favorite filament.. most anything will do. If you're going to leave it outdoors, ASA/PETG might be a good choice, but PLA will have better overhangs, and for this non-load-bearing print ought to be fine for some time.
2. Print at 0.2 mm layer height or finer with settings that produce decent overhangs. The threads have been modeled to be 3D printer friendly, but you'll want overhang not to be awful. They're only 60 degrees, however, and the tolerances will allow for some messiness here. I know.. because I went way too fast with my first settings with ASA and it still worked fine despite messy overhangs! If you have any sticking , working it back and forth or using just a tiny amount of grease will make it work great!
3. Shown here in Prusament Sapphire Blue ASA. Bambu X1C users who use OrcaSlicer can find a tuned printing profile for this filament and model in the file called Scoop_v10_ForOrcaSlicer_BambuX1C. This is an improvement over the model shown in the pictures, with better speeds and overhangs, based on testing.

Use

1. Attach the threaded scoop to the shaker.
2. Fill the scoop/shaker with your desired material, such as ice melt salt, fertilizer, etc.
3. To store: Detach the scoop and attach the cap to store the shaker.

You can also print multiple scoops and shakers in different colors to distinguish them for different purposes. Scoop, shake, and store your way to a more convenient life with this multipurpose 3D printed salt shaker!

Files provided in 3MF and STEP and Fusion360 .. because being stuck in a mesh-only world can suck sometimes !

Note that in this model, I have compensated for the real-world rotational fit of the printed part by rotationally offsetting the scoop part by ~24 degrees based on my testing and measurements. In this way, it ought to line up ~opposite the handle when tightened onto the open end.

Re: Contest entry.. I basically put a unique lid on a basic 3D printed jar form here, but re-imagined the purpose as being a different type of jar entirely. Hopefully that's within the confines of the rules. No common jar would really hold enough salt , so I had to make my own…