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General Tips

PAPER & PRINTING- Printing out on cardstock (available at most office supply stores) will make the model far sturdier. If you print your models out on a color laser printer, you may want to give the paper a couple of coats of clear matte spray paint prior to cutting / folding, as the toner seems to like to flake off when scoring and folding. Inkjet printers hold the ink far better when the paper is folded. CUTTING & FOLDING - While scissors allow for fast work, they will tend to mangle very small details. I use scissors to do most of the cutting, and then break out the trusty hobby knife to finish the small detail cuts. To help ensure accurate folds, score the fold line by pressing down on it with a _very_ dull knife, empty ball point or other item that will crease the paper without cutting it. DOUBLE SIDED - Many of the paper models are folded onto themselves to make them stronger and provide color on both surfaces. Hold the paper up to a light bulb before making the final crease and check to make sure heavy black lines are overlapping. The printouts will often have cross-hairs or crease lines to help. I recommend gluing these together with a fairly dry adhesive – like a GLUESTIK™ - and letting it set overnight between a couple of phonebooks. (M)OUNTAIN / (V)ALLEY – On some of the more complex models, I have an M and a V notation. M means the paper should be folded so that the printed side should be the surface of a mountain peak, and V means the printed side should be the surface of a valley floor. On other models, the mountain folds are indicated by dashed lines and the mountain folds by dash-dot-dash lines. GLUING - I use very thin layers of white glue (Elmer's Glue-All in the USA; Evostik Resin W in the UK; Aquadhere in Australia). This works well with cardstock, but if you print it out on normal weight paper, you should be careful to avoid excess glue that will warp the paper. Sometimes a particular gluing step will want to pull itself apart, so you can either sit there for ten minutes holding it, or invest in some ‘wimpy’ alligator clips, paper clips, or miniature clothespins. BODY WORK - On some of the paper units, you might find unsightly edges of white paper poking out here and there. Feel free to use a felt tip pen – or paint for that matter, to blend these edges into the rest of the color scheme. WEIGH ‘EM DOWN - If you would like your foxholes to resist gale force winds (e.g. your opponents sneeze), tape a penny (or pence, or 10 centavos) to the back.

Other sites

www.cardfaq.org – the most comprehensive site online for everything you wanted to know about making stuff out of paper and cardboard.