My Little Giant ladder’s WingSpan Wall Standoff (https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0255/4871/8125/products/10111_grande.jpg?v=1572525772) was missing one of its plastic feet, or plug (helps prevent marring the surface upon which the Little Giant ladder rests). The Little Giant folks wanted a Little Giant amount of money to replace it. But wait, I have a Glowforge. I’ll say up front that it would not be profitable to crank these out and sell them online – way too much time invested. But there’s a principle involved here…
First, I took the remaining, not-missing plastic foot, or plug and traced its shape (what gets inserted into the aluminum Wingspan) on a piece of paper and used the GUI to trace the image. As the traced image was a bit jittery, I exported the design and placed it in Adobe Illustrator and used Simplify Path to smooth things out. I added a hole in the piece to accept a 1/4" bolt (which would convert the individual pieces of cut material into one finished “foot/plug”). Then I exported the SVG and cut a test piece on cardboard to make sure it would fit snugly in the Standoff. Satisfied that the pieces would fit snugly into the Wingspan, I cut a bunch of the pieces from some .138" white oak, rotating the design 90º for about half of them so the built-up piece would have the wood grain of the pieces simulating plywood (stronger, and less prone to cracking/splitting). Using the GUI ruler, I enlarged a copy of the shape to match the outer outline of the remaining plastic foot/plug and cut a larger oak “shoulder” and three pieces of thick natural leather to act as the larger part of the foot/plug which rests upon the surface (glued up with Barge All Purpose Cement). I added 1/2" diameter circles for two of the leather pieces to accommodate the head of the ¼"-20 bolt that ties it all together (see pics).
Bottom line – it works “as advertised” and left me with the warm satisfied feeling that in some small way I beat the system (part of a never-ending daydream)…
