"Help!" for: Papercraft or Pepakura

[23Magnum]

This thread will contain general first hand knowledge of papercrafting and/or pepakura.

People who don't know: Post questions.

People who know: Answer those questions.

Please be as clear and detailed as possible with your questions and/or answers. Repeated questions or variations of certain questions may be consolidated over time into an FAQ section in the post following this one.

Always ask and answer questions as if you were asking/answering your mother or grandmother. In other words, politely.

Rudeness and/or impatience will be met with an infraction. You don't want too many of those.

These threads are meant to reduce and hopefully eliminated the need for the numerous 'I need help threads' that seem to generate endlessly in this section of the forum.

They are not a be all, end all to all questions that could ever be asked though. Some questions will be project specific and you may need to ask those IN the project's thread itself. However, some may not see your questions there so you may post a link to said project thread in the appropriate "Help!" thread when you need the attention of a few extra eyes.

[23Magnum]

FAQ Section:

[23Magnum]

Tutorials that involve this thread's subject matter and are approved by the site staff will be linked in this post. Please review them as they may already contain the answers you seek.

Tutorial Section:

[Shock\Trooper-2148]

Hi. Shock\Trooper-2148 here! I understand that I'm a noob and all, but where do I get the pepakura files to begin the build? Please understand this is my first time on a forum and I don't know how does a forum work exactly. I can someone direct me somewhere please.

[Roadkiller]

Welcome to the 405th! The thread at the link contains enough information to help you get started, I'd suggest you read it all:

http://www.405th.com/showthread.php/...B-reading-list

[CoolC]

All,

I admit that I did not read all of the posts in this sticky. If I repeat what everyone knows already I apologize. Here are simple steps that I hope new members find useful.

A lot of people like to use hot glue to stick pieces together. I've been using Elmer's glue and it has work wonders. No burn, no mess. Hopefully you find these simple tutorials useful. I find that using this method speeds up the process.

Here is the goal - an ODST fanny pack.


You can use different color to indicate peak or valley fold. Here I cross a line to indicate valley.


Next I draw lines before cutting.


I fold the line before cutting.


I cut out the piece. I did not cut precisely on the tabs because they will not be visible after gluing.


I apply glue on both faces that will stick together.


You need to wait at lead 10-15 seconds for the glue become tacky. During this time you can start cutting other pieces. After that press one end together.


Stick the other end.


Finally, because it is white glue, you still have to finally adjust the middle part.


The final pep file is as strong as using hot glue. After resin, glassing or rondo, it looks just as good. Try it.

[AvAngelAvA]

Hey everyone I've been working on my Kat pepakura armor project for awhile now (sadly had to take a pretty long break) and was just looking for some advice on my measurements before printing.. I've finished two boot toes and the handplates now, so I'm fairly comfortable with the pepping process and would really like to jump into a piece a bit more intensive.. so I found L3X BLU3R1V3R's female reach torso here: http://www.405th.com/showthread.php/...h-Mark-V-Torso. I've read many comments about it and it seems to be the best Reach torso out there I've scaled it to what I thought was accurate, but because its 44 pages of cardstock I couldn't in good conscience print it all out without being 99% sure that it would end up fitting correctly after pepping, fiberglassing, and the whole shebang.

I used a formula (by Ral Partha) provided on the page with the chest piece to find my current scale: Assembled Height (in mm) = 10.4 x (shoulder width in cm). My shoulder width in cm is 49.5 x 10.4 = 514.8mm

SO. Here's the scaling its set at right now, height: 515mm; width: 457mm; depth: 517mm
My height is 5'10" and my measurements are (estimating beginning and ending of measurements from legendary statue and the pep file itself), shoulder width: 495mm; width across ribs: 406mm; chestplate (top-bottom of ribcage): 267mm; base of neck to mid-back: 317mm... yeah I'm probably being way too particular about this but I'd really rather not waste all that paper and time spent cutting out and gluing so I thought it'd be better to provide more info than needed than not enough.

As you can see the width of my shoulders and the width provided in the pep file are not matching up. So, am I measuring in a wrong place compared to the file? Do I scrap the formula (which was said to be accurate by others who used it) and just go by width - width? Do I just take what I have now and go with it? ..or am I just doing everything wrong? lol

I also don't quite know how much more I should add to the measurements to compensate for shrinking during the fiberglass/resin process... any advice there?

I realize this is one of the most common requests/questions out there and I'm sorry for adding another one to the masses, but it seems like every case is different and because it's basically the biggest piece in the build I really want to be sure... (or as sure as one can be about these things..)

Thanks for your patience,
Angela

*edit: that formula is for the male version of this torso also made by L3X BLU3R1V3R. Maybe that's part of the discrepancies? The female torso is edited to be a bit smaller/thinner.*

[jtbaker999]

I keep clicking on the Pepakura Files and it keeps bringing me to a page that says "COMING SOON", does this mean that the website is broken and will be fixed soon? I'm really excited about starting to make my own armor so I hope its fixed soon if its broken.

[CampGroundHost]

its just that section, everything else is working, as far as i know. go to the wiki or search the forum. i know heavygunner has a thread with all of his files that he has on his computer might wanna go check that out
here's the link http://www.405th.com/showthread.php/...t=heavy+gunner

and by the way welcome to the 405th

[spags]

how does pepekura and papercraft work?