I am fond of my butter bell…Mine is made of marble and keeps a quarter pound of butter fresh and soft on my counter. However, reloading it is a mess. I get butter on my hands. Washing up required warm water and my water heater is distant from the kitchen sink, which requires I wait some time before washing my hands.

There had to be a better way…enter the 3D printer…As always, nothing is done right on the first try…

My first thought was to make a simple device to hold the cube of butter upright and allow it to melt into the bell. It didn’t work. The butter just sat there, not melting. I tried using the microwave oven to hasten the melting process.

While it did make the butter melt down into the bell, it also ruined the butter. It made the butter grainy. It separated and needed to be put in the refrigerator to make it solid enough to stay in the bell. I tried putting the bell with the device and the butter outside. Apparently, 100 degrees was not warm enough to do the job completely. Putting it in the direct sunlight for 5 minutes was equivalent to putting it in the microwave oven.

Therefore, I needed to go back to the physical method of pushing the room temperature softened butter into the bell. I tried a spoon. It worked OK, but the spoon is round and the hole in the device was square…Back to the printer…

Finally. I modelled a square plunger for my butter bell filling device. Now I don’t get my hands buttery.

You can get the files HERE.