(I did search before post but could not find anything helpful.)
Hi everyone,
I'm looking to make a huge paper around 40"x40" MC paper. However, the tissue I bought has size of 20"x30" and the max square I can make from that is 20"x20". That's not enough for my up coming project of folding a humongous (red) Ancient Dragon.
So with that said, do you think I can combine/expand tissue paper together during the treatment of Methyl Cellulose? Would that work? 20"x30" x 20"x30" = 40"x60" Then I can cut a square of at least 35" (compromise the overlap during the MC process)
Is it possible? Do you have any suggestion? Tips? Thanks in advance.
this is the wrong section to place this kind of question at, haomaru97. move it to the general origami talk - there people will expect this question and will probably give a helpful answer, too.
unfortunately i have no advice for you, 'cause i use to fold with kraft most of the time.
If you mean that you want to overlap sheets while gluing/MC-ing them together, yes that works pretty well. You should ask somebody to help you lift the sheet if you intend to move it while it's wet, otherwise the sheet's weight can cause it to rip very easily. (Since I dry my sheets on a cord, I do need to move it.)
With some papers I've run into the problem that the fibers retract a lot when drying, making the sheet rip if it sticks to the support you used while drying.
You can also consider making partial MC'ed sheets and let those dry, then just glue them together with MC. The result is not always as perfect, but much easier to handle.
My sheets also expand a lot when wet. I imagine that would make keeping the seams aligned very tricky. Perhaps try on smaller pieces first, to see how it's going to work out.
I have done this. I have not tried making a sheet bigger than the piece of plexiglass that I have (34" x 34"), and think that might be a bit more difficult.
I do a single layer, let it dry, then put on the next layer over the top. If find I get better results with less wrinkles and such.
I've tried overlapping joints, and just butting them together (for 1 layer of tissue). A slight overlap is much better as I've had it tear during folding on the butt-joints (since they are only 1 sheet thick).
So I now lay down my first layer with about 1/16" overlap on the joints, let it dry, then lay down the second but make sure the second sheet has it's joints in different spots. For the ancient dragon I'd expect you'd want to plan ahead a bit to make sure the joints are not on the wings where they might be visible. As long as they are part of a multi-layer stack you shouldn't be able to see them...
I do end up with 3-4 pieces that I cut to fit together from 2 of the 20" x 26" sheets for each layer which yields a 32" square or so when all is said and done...
yeah....just make a piece of paper larger than the 40" square you need, then you don't have to worry about expansion. Just wait til it is dry and cut the sheet to size.
Thanks guys. I think I can just use MC on the 1 inch between the 2 already-treated papers. That will glue them up for a larger sheet that I'm looking for. I will post pictures later.
I would recommend making a 2-layer sheet (if you haven't planned on that already). That way you can overlap them so the seams on one side all lie on flat paper behind, making it stronger. This way you could also use the "butt up" approach. I have had success with tearing the edges of 2 sheets before joining them with MC to minimize the appearance of the seam.
(seriously)