Introduction: Large Scale Origami Sheets

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Have you been inspired by the recent success of the "white elephant" by Sipho Mabona or any other of the large scale pieces of origami, but don't have the $24,000 needed to fund it and don't want to crowd fund it. Well then you've come to the right place as this instructable has all the information you need to create a large scale sheet and how to display it properly.

Step 1: Materials

You will need for the sheet

  1. A roll of tin foil
  2. Scissors
  3. Sheets of paper, I am using an old magazine
  4. A ruler
  5. Engineering square (or any other type of right angle)
  6. Spray glue, a normal glue stick may work, but I would not recommend it

For the finished model your may need

  1. Bamboo or wire depending on the size

Step 2: Sheet Time

Firstly roll out a couple rolls of tin foil so that it looks roughly like a square, try not to overlap the tin foil.

Next, lay out one column of your sheets over the tin foil this time overlapping them.

Then pick up one sheet at a time and spray the side facing the tin foil with enough spray glue to cover it and quickly place it back down on the tin foil.

Repeat until the sheet is roughly square, don't worry if all the tin foil isn't covered as most of it will be cut off.

Step 3: Clean Up Time

Now it is time to clean up the edges and hopefully turn it into a perfect square.

First fold it in half along one of the straight tin foil edges, then in half again along the newly made crease.

Next, cut the bottom not straight edge along the straight edge on top (the one you folded against in the first step) so that you end up with two straight edges.

Then fold edge 1 along edge 2 and then turn over the sheet.

Next roughly cut off some of the excess, then take your engineering square and line it up against the straight line and draw along the side, continue the line with the ruler.

Finally, cut along the line, if they is any tin foil still visible you can repeat the steps or leave it.

Step 4: Fun Time

Now that you have your large scale origami square its time to fold something from it, if you're stuck for ideas then check out here.

If you do want an exact replica then fold the model from a smaller sheet first and measure the size before and after then scale up the after size keeping the same ratio. For example a 10cm sheet that makes a 5cm model, if you wanted the model to be 50cm the you times both numbers by 10.

When folding large scale models the finished model will often be quite flimsy so you will need a wire frame or skeleton inside to support it. This can be done by gluing pieces of wire to each limb.

Happy folding