Make Your Own Car Parts: From Sketch To 3D Print (Full Tutorial)

Along the way, you’ll see exactly how the same skills apply to making your own 3D parts for more complex car mods and retrofits.

In this video you’ll learn:

• How to sketch in 2D, use circles and rectangles, and then extrude into 3D
• What fillets are and why rounded edges make prints look and feel better
• How parametric design lets you change dimensions later without redoing the model
• How to export a mesh (STL/3MF) and bring it into your slicer (Bambu Studio, PrusaSlicer, etc.)
• Basics of slicing: orientation, infill, wall loops, print time, and filament usage

Whether you’re designing a headphone stand or custom parts for your VW ID.4/5, ID.3, ID.7 or ID.Buzz, this is a great first step into CAD for 3D printing.

Check out the  VWIDTalk Podcast on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts ( Apple Podcasts,  Spotify, Overdrive and more).

A transcript, cleaned up by AI and edited by a staffer, is below.

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Transcript:

Jan: Welcome back, everybody, to the VWIDTalk podcast. We’re your hosts, Jan and Wes. Thanks so much for subscribing — it really means a lot to us and motivates us to keep doing this.

Wes: One thing I’ve mentioned before is that I don’t really have the skills to design some of the parts you’ve made. So you decided to create something using simple shapes as a demonstration, showing people how to design their own 3D-printed parts. In this case, it’s a headphone holder. The point isn’t really the holder itself, but learning how to design something like it.

So when you want to design an object like this, where do you start?

Jan: The first thing I do, before even opening CAD software, is measure the object. For something simple like this, I’d measure my headphones — the size of the thing I want to create.

Wes: And how long would this take you to design?

Jan: About five to ten minutes.

Wes: That sounds old-school, but you’re using calipers, rulers — actually measuring things.

Jan: Exactly. Calipers are the most important tool. When I design something more complex, like the four window switches, I use two methods. First, I take a photo of the part. Then I import that photo into Fusion 360 and trace it. Combined with caliper measurements, I can transfer the correct shapes and dimensions and design the part from scratch.

Wes: So you can import a photo, scale it to match the real-world dimensions, and trace over it?

Jan: Yes. I actually have a good example here. Can you guess what this is?

Wes: I know exactly what that is. That’s the screen removed from your ID.4, with the Skoda Enyaq buttons mounted below it.

Jan: Correct. I lined it up on a grid and measured everything. Even if you’re millimeter-accurate, you still end up making adjustments. Designing something like this is much more complex than a headphone holder.

One important thing I learned is that the camera has to be perfectly parallel to the object when taking the photo. If it’s even slightly angled, you get distortion and one side ends up larger than the other. I also include a ruler in the photo. In Fusion 360, you tell it how long that ruler is, and the software scales the image accordingly.

Wes: Why not use a 3D scanner and just print the scan?

Jan: You could, but the question is whether the scan is directly printable. Usually it isn’t. You still need to import it into CAD software and trace it to create a usable 3D model. It may be more accurate than a photo, but you still have to do the modeling work.

Wes: So today you’re going to show us how to make this headphone holder from a completely blank slate.

Jan: Exactly. The basic workflow is opening a CAD program. I’ve done tutorials in FreeCAD before, but today I’m using Fusion 360 from Autodesk. It’s free for personal use. If you sell models, you need a license, but if you’re sharing them on sites like MakerWorld or Thingiverse, the free version is fine.

Wes: Your screen is 2D — how do you design a 3D object in that space?

Jan: You start by creating a sketch and choosing a plane. Just a quick disclaimer: I’m not a professional in Fusion 360, and there are many ways to do things. If there’s a better approach, feel free to comment.

I start with the base. I measured the width of my headphones — 180 mm — and draw a center-diameter circle. You can type the exact dimension directly into the sketch.

Next is the portion that actually holds the headphones. That measurement was 80 mm. You want enough pressure to hold the headphones in place, but not so much that it stretches them. This part often comes down to an educated guess, followed by test prints and adjustments.

Then I add a centered rectangle for the vertical column so everything stays aligned. At this point, it’s still all 2D.

I decided the base thickness should be 40 mm. The height of the holder was chosen to allow some clearance below the headphones while staying within the limits of the printer.

Once the sketch is done, I finish it and start extruding. I select the base and extrude it 40 mm. That turns a 2D shape into a 3D object.

Next, I extrude the center column. One common mistake here is creating a “new body” instead of joining it to the existing one. If that happens, you can fix it by editing the extrusion and setting it to “join,” so it becomes a single solid body.

Wes: That makes sense — you’re building up the shape step by step.

Jan: Exactly. After that, I add fillets to round the edges. This softens sharp edges and makes the part look nicer. You can choose how rounded you want it to be — that’s a design decision.

I also add smaller fillets around the base edges so everything is smooth. If the fillet is too large for the geometry, Fusion 360 will throw an error. In this case, 5 mm worked well.

Now we need to create the hole — the negative space for the headphones. This requires a new sketch on a different face of the model. I sketch two circles, position them roughly where I want them, and connect them with a rectangle. Once the sketch is complete, I extrude that shape inward using a cut operation.

It’s okay to cut farther than necessary. The advantage of parametric design is that if you change an earlier dimension, the whole model recalculates automatically.

Wes: So the object is built based on parameters you can modify at any time.

Jan: Exactly. That’s what makes parametric modeling so powerful.

If needed, you can also apply fillets to the inside edges. If you run into errors, it usually means the fillet is too large for the available space — reducing the radius fixes it.

Once the design is finished, I rename the part and export it as a mesh, typically an STL file. That file goes into the slicer.

Wes: For people new to 3D printing, the slicer is the software that turns the model into printable layers.

Jan: Right. I use Bambu Studio since I have a Bambu printer, but the concept is the same for Prusa or others. The slicer lets you choose orientation, filament type, infill, and wall thickness.

This part doesn’t need supports because the top overhang is shallow enough. When you slice the model, you can see how many layers it will take and how much filament is used. Adjusting infill from something dense to around 10 percent can save a lot of material without sacrificing strength.

The honeycomb structure inside provides internal support without making the part solid. A fully solid version of this would use nearly three kilograms of filament, which would be a huge waste.

You can also increase wall loops if you need extra strength. These are added inward, so the external dimensions don’t change.

Once everything looks good, you send it to the printer. After a few hours, let it cool, and you’ve got a finished headphone holder.

Wes: I love it.

Jan: This print takes about six hours, so it’s perfect for an overnight job. We’ll probably put a time-lapse of it on our lo-fi channel.

Now you know how to get started designing your own parts. This headphone holder was actually the very first thing I ever designed in Fusion 360.

Wes: That makes it even more impressive.

Jan: So give it a try. Today we showed how to design a part in Fusion 360, export it as a mesh, slice it, and print it on any compatible 3D printer. Then you get to enjoy your own creation.

Wes: Absolutely wonderful. Thanks so much for watching and subscribing. See you next time.

Jan: Bye.