The local museum is putting together a diorama of the Juno Beach D-Day landing and I was volunteered to build the beach obstacles. The Czech hedgehogs were fairly easy to build from plastic angle but the tetrahedrons were not cooperating . That is until I switched to paper modeling! A bit of time on the computer figuring out a graphics package (Visio), some more work designing the part, some grey paper from the local craft store and voila, tetrahedron tank obstaces.

... at 1/72 ! Interesting angle of approach. I wouldn't have thought of using paper for that.
I bet you can't see this was paper when it's properly painted.
One question though : paper tends to bulge a little when you build things with it. Didn't you have this problem here ? How did you solve that issue ? What did you use to glue them ?

Are you actually making them from paper or just printing a template to be transfered to plastic?

Hi Guys,

The paper is fairly heavy, 0.011 inch or 25 mm thick so it is pretty sturdy and once the whole thing is glued up the structure is straight and self bracing. There is a little bit of bowing when initially constructed but this is easily removed with a little finger or straight-edge pressure. The only other problem I encountered was bending the three sides up, it is way better to partially cut through the bend lines then form before the inner triangles are cut out. The paper just bends better this way.

I used dark paper so that I don't have to put on a lot of paint and by using solvent based paint sswelling is kept to a minmum. The whole thing is held together with Delta archival quality photo-safe white glue. It dries clear and has a real nice consistency for edge glueing. The glue is spread on the edge using a scrap of paper. I have not tried to transfer the pattern to styrene because the paper is working out so well.

The Czech hedgehogs are definitely easier to build in plastic due to the angles and extra fragility.

PB