Paper Folding is a free collection of illustrated making guides, starting with paper airplanes.
Each tutorial includes materials, original English instructions, illustrated end states and an optional interactive guide. Basic Dart uses folds only; the glider and bird require cutting. Paper Bird also requires two pins and added covering tape, with adult pin handling.
Paper Folding is a working name for this preview. No account or payment is needed. The collection focuses on making the models, without flight rankings or performance claims.
The guides are reconstructions or adaptations of the editions below. Authors are credited for their publications, not asserted to be the inventors of these designs. Each tutorial identifies its modern dimensions and other choices separately.
Edward Verrall Lucas and Elizabeth Lucas, What Shall We Do Now? A Book of Suggestions for Children’s Games and Employments (1904), pp. 233.
Letter paper and a 90° reopening of each wing are modern reconstruction choices, not dimensions or angles specified by the book.
Open historical source ↗A. Frederick Collins, The Magic of Science: A Book of Scientific Amusements (1917), pp. 103–104.
The original labels the 8-inch span, 2-inch wing depth, 6-inch body segment, 3-inch tail depth and 3-inch body root, and asks for four leading-edge folds. It does not number the tail span, narrow body end or fold spacing. This adaptation specifies a 4-inch tail span, 1-inch narrow end and four ¼-inch roll folds. These are new construction parameters, not recovered historical dimensions.
Open historical source ↗Tudor Jenks, “About Flying-Machines,” St. Nicholas, Vol. XXIII, No. 6, April 1896 (1896), pp. 445.
The original requests writing paper about 8 × 4 inches, the pictured bird outline, a flat V along AC, and two pins near the head at B. Internal outline coordinates, two 15° half-wing bends (150° included V), approximately 1-inch pins and covered/secured points are modern teaching choices. Tape is an added precaution, not an original material. The historical illustration is not a dimensioned plan.
Open historical source ↗Instructions, diagrams and code were newly produced with AI assistance from historical constructions. Original source scans were checked as references, not bundled into the site. Finished-model illustrations come from the same construction states as the tutorials; they are not photographs of completed physical models.
They show the intended paper shapes, moving layers and fold sequence. Cutting and accessory placement are labeled schematics. Numerical and browser checks help find implementation errors, but cannot prove that a person can follow a guide successfully.
None of these three tutorials has been tested in a real-paper follow-along. Paper thickness, contact, collisions and exact visibility of overlapping layers are not simulated. A4 compatibility is not claimed.
The public-domain assessment concerns the specific historical editions in the United States. It does not cover modern websites or guarantee rights in every country. No overall license for this project's code, text or media has been selected. Public preview access is not a blanket reuse license.