How-To: Working gears from junk mail

Becky Stern is a Content Creator at Autodesk/Instructables, and part time faculty at New York’s School of Visual Arts Products of Design grad program. Making and sharing are her two biggest passions, and she's created hundreds of free online DIY tutorials and videos, mostly about technology and its intersection with crafts. Find her @bekathwia on YouTube/Twitter/Instagram.

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@bekathwia

February 27th, 2009

Instructables user Riblets writes:

This step by step tutorial will show you how to print, cut out, fold, and construct a gear to get you started building your own papercraft mechanical devices. There is still some small problems with the design, but I’m trying to balance ease of construction with functionality.

You will need:

1. A Laser Cutter or X-Acto Knife.

2. A T-Pin, Straight Pin, or Push Pin at least 5/8″ in depth, (regular pushpins are too short and map pins bend too easily).

3. Stiff paper, Brochures and Junkmail like Restaurant Menus are a good choice as long as they fit into whatever printer you’re using.

4. A half hour of time and Patience, this is very much like miniature model building.