I was at Starbucks recently. With my hands, I can’t hold a hot coffee easily. Sensitive skin. So I use one of those cardboard sleeves. Every time. What a waste.

So I thought “Hey, I have a 3D printer. I should print a solution to this waste problem. I should make a sleeve that fits a standard coffee paper cup.”

And so I did. I realized, hey, I have just finished this amazing model of the new Thunderbird 1 from the new TV series Thunderbirds Are Go, and part of that model would work really well as a coffee holder:

So I took just one small portion of this model and adapted it to fit a standard coffee cup by basically tapering it to the exact angle of the cup. (This took a few test prints and iterations.) The great thing is that inside the surface, a 3D printer prints a hollow lattice work, which is a natural insulation from the hot cup.

I posted the result on facebook on the Fanderson page. The response was more than I expected. I expected a few “Oh, that’s kinda cool”, and even a few “Doesn’t belong here.”

What I got instead were people trying to buy it, and someone even said “This is exactly why I come here.”

Then one guy said “Hey, let me know when you do Thunderbird 4.”

That gave me an idea. I could do all 5 new Thunderbirds! I already had Thunderbird 3 modeled:

So I made a cup based on 3, then did 2, 4 and 5 based on images of each ship as taken from the intro to the new show:

And here they all are:

TB5 takes the elements of the golden cylinder, broken up by superstructure lattice, with a horizontal 5 inside a black element:

Thunderbird 4 uses the prominent red stripes, with a bit of body plating, and engine cowl:

Thunderbird 3 uses the black ring at the top, and the engine flanges at bottom, and a black inlay seen on the original:

Thunderbird 2 uses the distinct yellow striping, and obvious engines, but also the circular shoulder hinges that lower the retro jets on the ship:

Thunderbird 1 uses the honeycombing (even on the number) seen in the original: