I'm trying to find the inner diameter of a roll of toilet paper, but the internet is turning out to be completely useless for this. Everything is either AI slop that makes zero sense, or reddit posts of people who use toilet paper tubes to measure the girth of their penises.
I better go find my calipers.
The problem: Toilet paper rolls fit loosely on the holder, resulting in unsightly and unpleasant flopping
The solution: a simple 3D print keeps toilet proper roll nicely centered on the holder and offers smooth dispensing operation
@MLE_online seems like there's some variability between brands. One of the things I've noticed since they started reducing sheet count was the inner diameter is getting larger.
@dokuja yea, but how come i can't even find a single result anywhere of anyone saying an inner dimension that makes sense?
@MLE_online no idea. the one here is a little under 1 3/4" if a rough estimate helps. This is from one of the larger diameter rolls recently.
@dokuja @MLE_online bad news for penis measurers everywhere
@MLE_online well, you just made me go measure mine, and it has an internal diameter of 42mm
@slyka that's what I got, too. well, more or less. It's not exactly round, so I took a bunch of measurements and averaged it and got 41.9mm
@MLE_online surprisingly consistent across continents…
@slyka yea, i would not have expected euro tp and america tp to have the same measurements
@MLE_online @slyka
(I feel slightly annoyed with myself for doing this) About 40-41mm for Lidl value brand.
@botvolution @slyka why annoyed?
@MLE_online @slyka just because
@botvolution @slyka well, thank you for contributing to the knowledge base
@MLE_online @slyka
I also had a roll of Plenty brand kitchen roll neqrby and that's the same.
@slyka @MLE_online I got 40mm
@MLE_online You might also want to use scissors to cut a tube lengthwise and flatten it to measure the circumference.
@MLE_online the first DuckDuckGo search result for me was both thorough and correct, and so was the summary?
@talldarknweirdo i do not get that result when i search, but i searched inside diameter instead of core diameter
@MLE_online ah yeah DDG still has some of that early-google-days energy where phrasing can have an outsized effect on the results.
@MLE_online it’s not standardized
A few years back I did a project with toilet paper tubes and they vary, at least some brands do
@crazybutable no, but there should be some kind of an approximate range, right?
@MLE_online I was going to give you figures but my kids took the digital calipers and nobody knows where they are
@crazybutable that,s ok. I measured with my calipers and im printing something now
@MLE_online cool
I got the seeds by the way. I’ll put the tomatoes in a seed starter when I am done with work.
Should the squash go into seed starters, or right into the ground?
@crazybutable I would put them in starters, especially if there's any risk of late frosts that might kill them while they're babies. If you have cutworms, they might also just chop the seedlings off while they're tiny if you put them in the ground
@MLE_online Americans will do anything to avoid the metric system.
@zackstern the penimeter is an accepted SI unit
@MLE_online I didn't know I needed this until now
@slyka Isn't so much better lol?
@MLE_online better living through technology 😮
@MLE_online If I don't squash the roll into an oval, it always quietly unspools itself.
@ancientjames @MLE_online ghost cat?
@MLE_online v satisfying! good solution
@misternineham it works much better than i was expecting. I didn't think it would be as satisfying as it is
@MLE_online So smoooooth
@MLE_online my fear with this is the accuracy needed for "rolls freely" and "enough friction to allow one handed inertia tearing" is going to be a pain.
@LovesTha I made it so it has an amount of friction that feels right. I'm not worried about it. I've used many freely spinning toilet paper holders with zero issue
@MLE_online how did you design how the two halves snap together?
@crazybutable i accidentally designed the hole to be a tiny bit too small once printed, and rather than reprint the whole thing, i drilled it out with a drill bit slightly larger. That left the passage to the hole a tiny bit narrower than the hole is. So, it's a little snug as it slides over the bar, and then pops into place when it gets to the hole
Apr 21, 2026, 3:06 AM@MLE_online
I like it. It's a neat solution for something you found irritating. Good job! And the naysayers on here can go stuff themselves.
@MLE_online That is a beautiful 3D printed toilet paper bushing. You are a genius saving the world from toilet paper chaos.
Or you could just leave the toilet paper roll sitting on top of the tank, like 75 million single men do every day, and keep the bathroom door shut.
Apr 20, 2026, 10:45 PM@MLE_online so out of curiosity, are you making a replacement spanning bar or an adapter for the toilet paper roll tube to make it smaller?
I mean it's the same end result mostly but I could see either way
@moira click through to the rest of the thread
Apr 20, 2026, 10:47 PM@MLE_online oh, nice
that is not how i thought that mechanism worked, good adapter
(that wasn't up yet when I started typing lol, must've missed it by less than a minute)
Apr 20, 2026, 10:46 PMAlso, for future reference/for anyone who does not have calipers:
cut once across the width of an empty spool, so that it is no longer a tube but a sheet of curly cardboard.
flatten the cardboard and measure the now-easily-measurable length.
divide that length by pi (3.14 is plenty close). if you want to be paranoid (inner vs. outer diameter) then divide by a little less than pi, like 3.1.
that's your diameter.
@MLE_online 1.695 inches diameter based on the caliper reading here. i suspect it varies by brand. (sadly, the brand here is Bezos Bazaar Commercial, as I am not the purveyor of TP here in the household).
@ai6yr mine was 42 mm, or about 1.65 in
@MLE_online Hmm, that's a significant difference.
@ai6yr apparently it gets worse than that because of shrinkflation
@MLE_online I wonder if the cheap brands vs. premium brands have a difference. 🤷
@MLE_online Also, WHO PUTS THEIR WEINER INSIDE A TOILET PAPER TUBE?!?!?!
@ai6yr everyone with a penis on reddit, apparently
@MLE_online @ai6yr I bet one guy did it as a joke and now everyone on dick measuring reddit has to say "yea mine won't fit either" so they don't look small to the other guys.
Apr 21, 2026, 3:21 AM