The Origami Forum

Are there any models that, whenever you attempt to fold it with any type or width of paper, will get a big hole because of intensive folding or simply too much tension in the paper even though you were very careful?

For me, it's Robert Lang's praying mantis (the one with the free diagram on the Internet.) Each time I try to fold the antennae part, the paper starts ripping...

Yeah splitting middle points can be troublesome. I almost always get a small tear somewhere when I do those (though I mostly fold with kami ). The other fold that is really bad, for me at least, is unsinking. Those are toss ups.

For me it's anything with a lot of creases radiating from a single point, crease pattern style, from origami paper. Simply making all the creases of a frog base will put a lot of strain on the center of the paper.

Oh, and open sinks. They're the worst. Color-changes can also be difficult.

And of course there's the infamous, pleat a few layers and fold in half and watch your entire model split in half...

Unsinks can be clean if you're careful.

Haha, Montroll's Armadillo comes to mind. I folded one out of kami a couple years ago and it still sits on my dad's desk. All three of it's bands are holding together by fibers .

That's the reason why I liked thin kraft paper that much until I found out about the paper made from two layers of tissue paper glued together with methyl cellulose. With that paper you still need to be careful on this parts but the chance that it rips is much less.

There are also huge differences between the different kinds of kami. I have two bags of mono coloured paper that look exactly the same, but one kind rips easily after a few folds the other one can be folded into most complex folds without any problems. Unfortunately I always forget which one is which...