Paper - Preferred folding material

General discussion area for learning about paper, and the different types available.

What material do you prefer to fold with?

kami
108
19%
foil (tissue/American/Japanese)
235
41%
heavy paper, wet folded
33
6%
normal copy paper
141
25%
other (plastic, metal, flour tortillas)
57
10%
 
Total votes: 574

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Earlobes
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Re: Paper - Preferred folding material

Post by Earlobes »

fncll wrote:I've seen a couple of mentions in this thread of "backing paper" or "display backing paper." Can anyone tell me more precisely what this is? Searching for those terms returns many, many different papers...
I think they might be referring to the backing paper used in classroom bulletin boards and such. It is usually a solid color, or has some type of repeated printed graphic (clouds, bricks, leaves, wood texture, etc). It comes in pretty tall rolls (nearly 50 in. or so), so I imagine you could get a few gigantic squares out of it. I've never personally tried it for origami, but I know it is available at my local arts and crafts store. The only brand of this kind of paper I know is Fadeless.
Rick Nordal
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Re: Paper - Preferred folding material

Post by Rick Nordal »

Photocopy paper is my favorite.

There is so much of this paper to be found for free, all over the city where I live, that I don't have to buy any folding paper.

Rick Nordal - http://ricknordalartwork.blogspot.ca/
Last edited by Rick Nordal on September 7th, 2014, 8:22 am, edited 2 times in total.
roodborst
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Re: Paper - Preferred folding material

Post by roodborst »

You steal copy paper all around town?.....
Rick Nordal
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Re: Paper - Preferred folding material

Post by Rick Nordal »

roodborst wrote:You steal copy paper all around town?.....
In the city where I live you can find free photocopy paper in the form of brochures, junk mail, and flyers. You can get photocopy paper at community centers for free. You can go to a printers shop and ask them if they have any printed photocopy paper they might be throwing away, and that you would like to use the paper for origami. You can find photocopy paper in the garbage throughout the city. Recycle !
BlueFireOrigami
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Re: Paper - Preferred folding material

Post by BlueFireOrigami »

My preferred paper to use is just plain A4 printer paper for most diagrams and crease patterns. It is strong and quite forgiving. I did experiment by making paper by sticking foil to a piece of gift wrap paper with a glue stick, but I found it too thick and glue stick leaves a lot of air bubbles! Other times when printer paper is too thick I use some ready made foil paper with a white back. It can be slightly weak and have the tendency to rip, but I highly recommend it for models that have lots of layers or need detailed shaping.

Blue
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Feanor
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Re: Paper - Preferred folding material

Post by Feanor »

Have anybody tried this paper? http://www.modulor.de/en/khepera-bookbi ... -blue.html
The description says:"The incredibly strong and hard-wearing material has processing attributes that are very similar to those of ELEPHANT HIDE."
The colors and texture seem quite interestig but i am not sure about its physical characteristics.
Andre-4
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Re: Paper - Preferred folding material

Post by Andre-4 »

Photo copy paper seems to be along the line of white oak,pine,larch etc that's very good but exotic papers are available from 99p for 5 sheets of a5 banana tree on sites like Amazon and ebay....silk paper,etc depending on your specific preferences....and local...I've used paper money...trash wrappers from food etc and am getting great results
Andre-4
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Re: Paper - Preferred folding material

Post by Andre-4 »

Earlobes wrote:
fncll wrote:I've seen a couple of mentions in this thread of "backing paper" or "display backing paper." Can anyone tell me more precisely what this is? Searching for those terms returns many, many different papers...
I think they might be referring to the backing paper used in classroom bulletin boards and such. It is usually a solid color, or has some type of repeated printed graphic (clouds, bricks, leaves, wood texture, etc). It comes in pretty tall rolls (nearly 50 in. or so), so I imagine you could get a few gigantic squares out of it. I've never personally tried it for origami, but I know it is available at my local arts and crafts store. The only brand of this kind of paper I know is Fadeless.
I made a simple form ball sonobe from sticky back plastic I was going to put on the kitchen cupboards....the creases stay if you only make a few folds
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mkosmul
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Re: Paper - Preferred folding material

Post by mkosmul »

Feanor wrote:Have anybody tried this paper? http://www.modulor.de/en/khepera-bookbi ... -blue.html
The description says:"The incredibly strong and hard-wearing material has processing attributes that are very similar to those of ELEPHANT HIDE."
The colors and texture seem quite interestig but i am not sure about its physical characteristics.
It's an old question but I'll answer nonetheless since I'm a big fan of this paper.

First of all, it's beautiful. The colors are a melange of many different shades which make a very interesting pattern.

However, it is only good for certain kinds of models: corrugations and tessellations, perhaps some wet-folded models with little detail would also work. This is caused by this paper's thickness. At the same time, it is soft, so it has a different feeling to it than Elephant Hide. It also lacks the shiny coating, so it's matte and slightly rough. You can see some pictures of models folded with it on flickr: https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=khepera%20paper
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primus
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Re: Paper - Preferred folding material

Post by primus »

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primus
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Re: Paper - Preferred folding material

Post by primus »

Harpseal wrote:A local library was sent some origami from Japan. The Librarian let me look at it. They were so stiff, they could have been made from metal.
The paper looked like napkin from a distance, but felt like card-foil (if there is such a thing) although it could have only been about 40gsm. Has anyone any idea what this paper might be?
Try to cover the finished origami hairspray strong hold.
Hairspray is composed of acrylic.
Finishing origami will be tough, but the appearance will remain unchanged
Andre-4
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Re: Paper - Preferred folding material

Post by Andre-4 »

I use starch for ironing shirts usually sold in shoe repairers or hardware shops a lotof paper
Is hand made as well and mulberry is as cheap as tissue papers
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Folderp
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Re: Paper - Preferred folding material

Post by Folderp »

For a first fold of a model I will almost always use copy paper or something similar but larger, however, for good folds my favourite paper is tissue foil. I've only used it once but the result was amazing!
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craycraycraw
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Re: Paper - Preferred folding material

Post by craycraycraw »

I like foil but for difficult and thick models that are likely to rip, I use standard kitchen wax paper cut to a 10x10" square.
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OrigamiasaEnthusiast
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Re: Paper - Preferred folding material

Post by OrigamiasaEnthusiast »

Kami because I have only used Kami...might get me some double tissue though.
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