DigitallyDo > Vinces Favorite Cars

picture of my cut and paste rendition of Bob's Isetta

The best cut, fold and paste Isetta on the web

(and it's still only about 65% done)


Cut and fold guidelines v 0.65

rough isetta cut and paste modelBack last October,I had a bright idea. More than a year before, someone had sent me this image which is a cut and fold Isetta. I thought it was an interesting idea, and cleaned up the image a bit, but it still isn't a very good likeness.

 

another small car (It's a Velam) A while later someone else sent me one of these (Actually it's a Velam. Live and learn. This image comes from a Japanese CD-ROM called Digital Paper Car illustrated by Mizorogi Akira) but frankly even though it's a vast improvement, I thought I could do better.

I figgured that I'd just grab some suitable pix off the net, do a little adjusting with Paint Shop Pro and have a cool little paper model. It wasn't quite that simple. There are plenty of pictures of Isettas out there, but to do it right I needed clean uniform shots of all four sides of the vehicle.

After surfing around a bit I came across Bob Nelson's cool Isetta 300 page, and contacted him about my little project. He was enthusiastic, and a couple of weeks later I got an envelope full of pictures.

Four aspects of Bob's Isetta
The best cut and paste isetta on the internet

After poking around on them for a couple of months I came up with this horrendously complex little item. I've made a bunch of them up while trying to find the best placement for the cut and fold lines, but I've kind of hit a plateau, so I'm putting it up for "beta" testing and public comment.

If you're interested in downloading the image and trying to fold one up for yourself, You'll probably want to use the High Resolution version. (choose <File> <Save As>, and then open with your favorite graphics program) (but wait) The file is LARGE (168k - 1900 x 1850 pixels) so that it will have good resolution when printed out. I don't know if people will have any problems because their printers and/or graphics software work differently than mine, but if you can "fill page" and "preserve aspect ratio" when you print it out you should be all right.

There's a version of the graphic with clearer cut and fold lines. It's a long way from complete, and I welcome any thoughts or suggestions, but here it is(169k).

  • Red means CUT
  • Green means FOLD UP
  • Blue means FOLD DOWN
  • When folded as I do it, the axles are triangular beams which have tabs sticking out of either end. These tabs are folded back and glued to the back of the tire face.
    The tabs surrounding the tire are folded back, and glued to the long strip (the tread) which is wrapped around and glued to the top of the wheel (keeping this all aligned squarely while the glue sets up is the trickiest part). If folded and glued correctly, the axle assembly is rigid and strong.
    Here is a picture showing one wheel and the axle folded and glued, and the other wheel cut and splayed. When assembling the wheel, don't fold the tabs back all in a row, rather jump around, and fold them back one at a time. This will help keep the wheel flat. The REAR (short) axle's tread section is not long enough, so leave a bit of extra length on the end away from the body on the cutout sheet (Hunh?) so that it will wrap all the way around the wheel.
  • The fenders are cut in a radial pattern and folded back, the tabs thus created are then glued to strips made from the grey blocks on the sheet. (I haven't sized these yet, so you'll have to fit them by hand.)
  • The axles are supported on the inside of the body by either gluing them directly to the inside of the fenders, or hanging them from straps glued in place for that purpose. I've done them all fitting by hand so far, so you'll have to make do as best you can. Here's a picture of the bottom of an earlier prototype to give you some ideas.
  • The roof, and bottom of the car have not had the lines laid out yet, but are similar to the second cutout at the top of this page.
  • The front of the car is currently flat, and is simply glued to the folded over section that's in front of the door seam in the side view. Eventually I want to build a compound curve into the front door so that it bulges like the origonal, but I want the rest of the car to be more stable before I lay down lines for that.

  • As always, comments are appreciated.


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