Links

Airplanes	Paper Models	Miscellanous
Soda Can Model Site	Geoblox	Ink Refills
Paper Airplanes (fold up kind)	Wings of Horus	Creativity Portal
Kenny's Old Time Model Airplane Magazine	GreMir Models	Paper Modeling Discussion
Soaring Society of America	Paper Toys	Bugbuster
We Can Do (soda can models)	Currell  Delta 7 Studios	Aristocat
Tesscar Aluminum Craft	Model Art Models	Bluegrass Airlines
Small Flying Arts	Spishop Paper Models	Gulf Coast Nautical
Unreal Aircraft	Glue-It	Crazy Hobbies
Flying Jenny www.flyingjenny.com	Great little paper planes that fly	Al's Scrapbooking
Building REAL airplanes	Neat stuff from Pop Cans	Lords Of Conquest

Basic Tips and Tricks for building Paper Models

Almost all paper models consist of primary shapes like cones, tubes and boxes arranged in any number of ways. Once you get the hang of making these shapes, you'll be able to do even the most complex models. Below are a few tips to help you get started building paper models. You may find that some of the techniques below work well for you and some don't.

Basic Tools Needed:
1. Glue (glue gun works best)
2. Scissors
3. Ruler (any straight edge will do)
4. "Dead" Pen (no more ink)
5. Colored Pens or Pencils*
6. Hobby Knife*
7. Cutting Matte* *not necessary, but can be very handy in a lot of cases.

Folding:
There are two folding tips that will help when assembling your models. Score the fold lines, and fold all parts before gluing. This will make your projects go together a lot easier and much faster. Use a ruler and "dead" pen to score the fold lines.

Here are a few other tips to help put your models together... Read the instructions all the way through one time before cutting out any of the parts. Cut out each part as you need it. After you cut out each part, use a ruler and a "dead" pen (no ink) to "draw" a score line along each fold. This will make the fold more accurate.

Fold all parts and test fit them before applying any glue. This way, you will not be fighting to get that last tab folded down in some awkward position.

Making Tubes Tubes are pretty simple to make. To make them even easier, try curling them using the edge of a desk or table before gluing together. Cut out the part that is to become a tube. Start with one end on the corner of your table and slowly pull it across the corner. This should make gluing the tube a lot easier then trying to glue and form it at the same time.

Making Cones Cones are very similar to tubes, just tapered down on one end. Cut the part out and start to curl it using the edge of a table or desk. The only difference between curling a cone and curling a tube, is when curling a cone, you want to keep the pointed tip in one place on the edge of your desk while rotating the curved part over the edge of the desk.

Finishing Details
A couple things you can do to make your models look really good when finished.

Finish the edges of your model. That's right, the edges. A printer can't print on the edge of the paper, so this edge will show white on a model that may be dark green or blue. Use some colored pencils or pens to color the exposed edges before gluing the parts together. Use good quality paper in your printer if you have to print the model. If you have a color inkjet printer, use the special paper so the colors and details of your model look good. If you accidentally get too much glue on a part, take a moment to wipe the excess off before it dries. Take your time and make sure all the parts line up properly before gluing.

Just like anything else, it's going to take some practice to get each model exactly how you want it, but you'll find the more models you do the easier they become.

About Designing in Paper:
There is of course a nice "artistic" challenge in itself to translate curved structures into flat. But I think there is something more. Real ships and metal airplanes are built as thinnest possible skins kept up by lightest possible framing structures. When you use paper for your model you come closer to the original "feeling" of the real ship or
airplane than you do if you use solid wood or cast plastic. Houses are easier to model in paper than curved structures.

Gluing:
It should be noted that the adhesive does not stick well to the shiny surface of photo paper...It will if one scratches the areas to be glued with the kraft knife or similar intrument. The surface must be pentrated in order for the glue to stick well...But the results of using photo paper is well worth the extra effort..... Richard Morse (6/03)

I know this question has been asked and answered alot, but what software are
you using to design models? I'm intrigued by the fact that it looks like a
3D model that has been flattened, then built. I've tried to design models
using cut-cones using my own jury rigged system in Illustrator but it sure
is tedious.

From Pulse rate Software, Cone: http://www.pulserate.com/cone. A must-have, easy-to-use, piece of software. Saves oodles of time.

From the FAQ there's the excellent Maths Primer with instructions for setting up a spreadsheet to do triangulation: http://www.cardfaq.org/faq/maths.html

From David Siguenza(sp?) there's PSM Tools: http://www.crosswinds.net/~dasitor/. Not very easy to use, but accurate and worth a try. It does, however, automate a great deal of the Maths Primer methods (above).

There's this gem (not software): http://www.skotophile.com/mark/rollation.html. Sometimes the software lets you down and these old metal working tricks can help you find the answers.

Two programs that I've looked over, but not had much luck with (some of the advanced 3D stuff baffles the hell out of me):
Tank CAM: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/HvOerle/tankcam.htm
PaperCAD: http://www.ixpres.com/gvsoftw/ (demo looks promising)

Tenkai can better fill you in on it's usefulness: http://www.page.sannet.ne.jp/jun_m/tenkai/index-eng.html. I believe his ant model was done with the demo.

There also used to be a boat hull unwrapping program available on the web somewhere but I seem to have lost it's URL. At any rate I had no success with it as the translation of boat to aircraft terminology and so forth had me confused.

Sending in your Work:
If we're swapping files that are intended to be modified (i.e. are not finished) then sending them as jpeg or jpg is NOT the way to go. We all know that jpeg is a "lossy" format, right? Every time a file is saved or re-saved as a jpeg the image is degraded. How much it is degraded is controlled by the software and/or person doing it.

The whole reason for doing jpeg is the reduced file sizes, but the cost of this is reduced quality. Have you ever zoomed in a jpeg where there are dark and light contrasts as in a black line on a white background? There you will see the characteristic dithering that the jpeg algorithm inserts. The more times the file is saved or the more jpeg compression that is applied will increase this dithering. Thin lines may just "go away" or become quite messy.

We use jpeg compression when creating our PDFs, but that ought to be the first and only time that jpeg compression is applied to the finalized model image(s). That means extracting the rasterized image from the PDF is only compounding the problem. Up until that time (the finalized model) if it needs to be worked on further or sent to Chip it should be in a lossless format that both PC and Mac platforms can handle such as TIFF.