mountain fold
valley fold
guide line
Use a ruler when you fold the paper. This will give you crisp, straight creases without weakening the paper.
Where the paper is curved, gently bend it with your fingers to “train” it before gluing. This will preserve its spring and prevent buckling and creasing.
Use a toothpick to help you roll up ballast and bearings. Roll the paper tightly around the toothpick, fasten the very end with a drop of glue, and pull out the toothpick. For bearings, loosen the roll very slightly before gluing, just enough that they turn freely.
You can push out the larger parts with your fingers, but the paper will be less likely to crease or tear if you use a craft knife to cut them loose. Cut slits carefully with scissors.
Carefully trim the flash from around the edges of parts you have pushed out. This will make them look cleaner and fit together better.
Don’t worry if you accidentally cut the wrong thing. In most cases you can patch up the cut from the inside with a small scrap of paper. Butt the two edges together, and glue the patch behind it, or between two parts. If the patch is small, it won’t affect the balance.
Use a toothpick to spread a drop of glue evenly over the whole surface to be glued. Very little is needed; in fact, a transparent film sticks much better than a thick layer. A little glue will make strong, clean joints. Too much glue will warp the paper and ooze out at the edges, and make your toy look messy and grimy. I recommend that you practice with scraps of paper before gluing actual parts.
Nail clippers are great for cutting toothpicks to the right length. Snip the ends off after putting the toothpicks in place, and then seal them in place with a dab of glue.
Use tweezers to hold smallish parts and firmly press glue tabs together.
How the Origami Diagrams Work
Here’s what the arrows in the directions mean:
Fold this way
Fold and unfold
Fold around behind
Flip the whole piece over
Most pieces start with the paper color side down. The drawings show the front in color, and the back in white.
This is a mountain fold; it looks a bit like a mountain.
And this is a valley fold.
Some shapes are made with reverse folds. Start by creasing the paper along the fold lines. Open out the paper slightly, reverse each of the folds, and recrease them to make a neat corner. Above is an outside reverse fold followed by an inside one.
The directions tell you to fold on such-and-such a line, but if you use your own paper you won’t have the lines. No worry! Just remember that in origami folds are usually made so that corners and edges meet, or folds start at half-way points. The diagrams show you which edges and corners to use. And where corners and edges aren’t indicated, the placement of the fold isn’t that critical.
Playing with Your Toys
People know how to play with toys. They don’t need to be told. So I won’t give you a lot of rules. Kids, they can make up their own. In fact, it’s probably better that they do. Toys teach kids about the world and how the things in it work. Games teach them how to get along with each other and cooperate. And the toys in this kit will have them (and you) learning all sorts of important things, without even realizing it. When you play, just be careful not to hurt each other with flying toys, don’t squabble and squash them, and put everything in a safe, dry place when you’re through for the day.
It’s not just children that will enjoy these karakuri toys. Teens, parents, college friends, grandparents: nobody can keep their hands off them. They look great on desks, on bookshelves, on mantlepieces and in cubicles. (I enjoy playing with them in the last few minutes before a big meeting.) This may be karakuri toys’ most amazing trick: they bring out the child in everyone. Have fun! Ready, set, go!
Stalking dinosaurs.
Tell my fortune!
Down the straightaway.
Lola the Ladybug.
Wally on the way down.
Flipping down the ladder.
Robot wrestling.
Hey, watch this!