A very simple, hookless tatting shuttle. Shuttle tatting is a technique for handcrafting beautiful laces by means of a small shuttle that holds and guides the thread.

There are two sample STL files:

• tatting-shuttle-full.stl: a complete tatting shuttle;
• tatting-shuttle-half.stl: just half a tatting shuttle for easier building.

You can build two halves (tatting-shuttle-half.stl) and then bond or weld them together. I made several out of ABS and solvent-welded them with cement made out of ABS scraps dissolved into acetone.

There are several geometrical parameters that can be changed. The attached drawing shows them; they are expressed in millimeters. You can edit the SCAD file to make a shuttle that suits your needs. In addition to the dimensions, there is a boolean parameter, half_model, which can be set to true in order to build just half a tatting shuttle.

With a little effort, you can give your shuttle a gorgeous look. Use a file to smooth the rough edges and, if you build your shuttle in ABS, try to use an acetone-soaked brush to give it a smooth, glossy, almost-pearly finish.

This thing can be seen as related to http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:10182 (a net-making shuttle) and http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6193 (a weaving shuttle).