Fold Forming- Pleats-plaits-tucks-rolls

Wow. It's been a while since I wrote in the blog. My apologies. I'll offer you a bribe of sorts to make up for my lack of writing. Consider this your Thanks Giving present. Yes I'll have one for Christmas for you also, but that's next week. I do all ready know what it is. Let me say this. I love Thanksgiving. Giving thanks is a wonderful idea, we should do it more often. But I love this holiday for two other reasons. First of all there's a parade! Secondly there's a concept us country kids understand. It's about looking at one thing and seeing something else. Turkeys are pretty disgusting, stupid critters. But to look at a turkey and see a feast is an amazing thing. That ability to look at one thing and see something else gets into fold forming a little bit. We are going to work with some metal but we're going to do it by thinking about fabric. This you've heard of a pleated skirt. you've seen accordion folded curtains. Here's a link that will fill you on on the terms of the pleat world.
http://blog.suitupp.com/2010/06/14/what-are-pleats-what-kind-of-pleats-are-there/

Your present is a demo!  Pretty soon you're going to want something to hang on a tree. How about something fold formed?  caption

 You're going to need some things. A straight edge, scissors or a sharp knife, maybe some tape, perhaps a few paper clips, and most important fingers..Oh and a roll of aluminum foil. Hey it's metal!

 I've taken an 18" by 36" sheet and box pleated it the long way,

It was then accordion pleated-folded at 90 degrees. I cut this into two sheets 9" long.

 

With a little unfolding and finger work it should look something like this. But we have to join the edges together.

 

Here comes the epic fail part of the demo..I got a better idea. I at first thought I could use a slip tab A into slot B approach..Bad Idea..Didn't work. Every good demo I've ever done had it's epic fail moment. Such is life.
Instead of doing that do this. Another type of pleat! A rolled pleat as the join.

Much better join. Push this area inward creating a valley  fold. Now comes the fun part!

This pic shows a mountain fold. The dots show areas where metal has been trapped by the box pleat. We are going to pull 1/2 of these trapped metal areas open. That's how we create our form!


Fun part! ( understand we are going to open the mountains not the valleys)

Work all the way around the form opening 1/2 of each side then the other 1/2 until it looks like this. Proceed to open up the others.

These are the two forms I created during this demo. Could you do them in copper? Sure, just find some copper foil. I had too many pleats to get ball shapes. You'll figure it out. I used 3/4 " spacing..too big for ornaments?  For thanksgiving you recieved the gift of seeing a possibility, Enjoy!