Dura-Lar is the best origami material in existence

Well, it has been a long time (3 years!) since I updated this blog. I haven't been neglecting my folding - far from it - I've just been updating my instagram (@foldedcrystals), and completely neglecting poor Blogger. IG is fine and all, though I do miss the ability to tell stories in a blog post. For me, the biggest story of the past few years has been the discovery of Dura-Lar polyester film, thanks to a recommendation from Mike Tanis (@miketanis_ on IG).

This material is truly ideal for what I do - it's extremely durable (hence the name), holds a sharp crease, is easy to work with, and will never crack or show stress marks, even after folding, unfolding and refolding the same lines repeatedly. Since I bought my first pack I've made countless pieces, but I thought I'd resurrect the blog with my latest piece, this ball based around the icosidodecahedron, which forms the outer surface.

 The inner surface is a simple icosahedron, and 30 fins bridge the outer and inner surfaces, each part of a plane that passes through the centre of the sphere. As you can see here, these fins are distorted along their inner edge. That's not due to sloppiness - because I'm forcing equilateral triangles into a geometry they're not quite suited for (about 10% too large along the inner edge), the triangles have to buckle a bit in order to fit. However, this pre-stressing of the units makes the completed design extremely strong. Seriously, I could kick this thing around like a soccer ball and it would be unharmed.

Here's an in-progress shot that shows the inner icosahedron surface more clearly. The overall scheme of this design is a negative-space icosahedron in the centre, surrounded by 20 octahedronal tubes that span the inner surface and outer icosidodecahedron surface. It's very similar to many designs I've produced in the past, but more elegant and strong than any previous works.

I really love this design, and plan next to make another one 2X the size, which I will be adding LED lights to. The compactness and durability of this design, which I'm calling Armored Icosahedron, will translate ideally into a desk lamp.

Pictured is another design which has the identical outer surface, but looks dramatically different as it's missing the inner half of the structure. My next post will detail this piece - coming soon!