The Origami Forum

Hey guys, I found something that may be pretty cool. I've seen some people online using fiberglass resin and paper to make a material called micarta. They soak paper in this resin and layer it to make a block of wood-like material. They use it to make knife handles and slingshots quite a bit. Anyways, I was thinking you could just brush it on to a model, and it would become very hard, and never come undone. Of course it wouldn't really be origami any longer, but it would be very cool. What do you guys think? Would it work? Thanks!

Well, there are people using resin to harden off their models. Marc Kennedy comes to my mind. The downside is, that paper alone would unfold during the process leaving just a sloppy mess. Therefore you need some internal structure to hold the model in place. Most people I know of therefore use Tissue Foil when they want to harden their models with resin or other varnish. I've even seen people dunk their models in molten wax to harden them.
The light version that also works with paper only is to use hairspray to stiffen your model.

I saw https://www.flickr.com/photos/blightdes ... DgH-dWcw4b a while back. They successfully dipped a paper crane in liquid rubber. I can't imagine it'd work anything but simple models (though I haven't tried), but thought I'd mention it anyway.

Years ago, I made some origami earrings for my wife that I coated in a very thin superglue (not the off-the-shelf stuff you can get at, say, hardware stores--if I recall correctly, this stuff in particular:



Some of the models were tissue foil, some were thick, decorative washi, but it ought to work on anything. Of course, anything you apply it with (e.g., paintbrush) will become useless afterward unless you have some acetone or a good, nasty solvent handy...