The Origami Forum

fun and addicting you need a ruler to do it and you need to get all the paper measurments right but it all pays off

You don't need a ruler to fold the Spring into Action. Just divide the paper into thirds, then fold these thirds in half to get 6ths and on the short side in half again to get 12ths. Then insert the diagonal waves and collapse.
Okay, maybe you need a ruler to get the 15x8 paper ratio, but you could just take a little bit more than half a square and should be fine as well.

The paper I have used for mine is A proportioned (no ruler needed to cut it), then I divided the short side in 4 and then I cut off one third. I think this explanation is in the book by R Lang.

A great model no doubt about it.

Any helpful hints about common mistakes? I think I'm off a tiny bit off folding on the angles and that is enough to throw the whole thing off.

Any secrets to success, or is it just patience and time ?

Thanks,

- Hank Simon

HankSimon wrote:Any helpful hints about common mistakes? I think I'm off a tiny bit off folding on the angles and that is enough to throw the whole thing off.

Any secrets to success, or is it just patience and time ?

Thanks,

- Hank Simon

Patience, time and understanding of how the collapsing process. One easier way to understand it is to do my simplified version which is accomplished by folding only a 6 x 6 grid. This doesn't mean you work with a square, you use the same A - 1/4th proportion, but instead of dividing the short side in 12 you just do it in 6. Here's a sample of how it should look when finished:

Fold it, unfold it, refold it, and understand how to collapse it and then proceed to the 12 x 6 grid.

Good luck.

Well, there is a trick about the precreasing. Don't make the diagonals as single folds, but always collapse a small part as if you would in the final model. That's hard to explain in words but always try to see two meeting diagonals as one hinge that needs to be folded together.
Begin with a horizontal mountain and valley fold it downwards at the same time on both sides of a Vertical Mountain fold.