Part family

Brackets

Curtain-pole, shelf and panel brackets from a plain-English description, with every stated dimension measured on the solid before you print it.


What to specify

  • What it mounts to, and how: screw diameter, how many, and how far apart on the centreline.
  • What it holds, and its size: a pole diameter, a shelf thickness, a panel edge.
  • The offset — how far the held thing sits from the mounting face. This is the number that decides the arm.
  • The thickness of the material. Five millimetres is a sensible floor for a printed bracket in PLA or PETG.
  • Whether the load drops in from above or is captured: a top-open cradle and a closed ring are different parts.
  • Clearance on the fit. A pole that has to slide needs half a millimetre; one that is clamped does not.

Prompts that work

A wall bracket for a 32mm curtain pole, two 5mm screw holes, holds the pole 60mm from the wall.

A shelf bracket for an 18mm shelf, 150mm deep, fixed to the wall with three 6mm screws 60mm apart.

An L bracket 40 x 40 x 3mm with two M4 clearance holes in each leg, 25mm apart.

Measured examples

A bracket is three things in one part: a face that touches the wall, a face that touches the load, and the arm between them. Almost every bracket that comes back wrong comes back wrong because one of those three was left to be guessed at — usually the offset, occasionally the hole spacing.

The offset is the specification

"Holds the pole 60 mm from the wall" is a better sentence than "60 mm deep", because it says where the centre of the pole ends up rather than how long some part of the bracket is. Say where the held thing sits and the arm length falls out of it. Say the arm length and you have specified the bracket without specifying the fit.

Hole spacing, not hole position

Two screws 40 mm apart on the vertical centreline is unambiguous and it is what a tape measure against the wall gives you. "Near the top and near the bottom" is not. If the holes have to line up with something that already exists — an old bracket's fixings, a stud — measure the spacing first and put that number in the prompt.

Clearance, said out loud

A 32 mm pole does not go into a 32 mm hole. The example below asked for a 32 mm pole and got a 32.5 mm cradle, because the spec carried half a millimetre of clearance. If you do not say it, you are relying on it being added for you. Say it.

What gets measured

Every stated dimension is measured on the exported solid before you see the file — the bounding box, the hole count and diameter, the opening angle of a cradle. The report says what was asked for, what was measured, and whether the two agree. It does not say the bracket will carry your curtain, which is a question about the load and the wall, not about the geometry.