What is your method to folding your pepakura?

[RYNO 666]

Sharp scoring bone and pens. The pens have to be the smallest ballpoint possible. The ink wets the paper making it crease much easier when folding. I'm a noob.

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[Flame Zero 1]

I like doing it the old fashioned way with an exacto knife. I just lightly score the fold lines with the tip of the razor side. Rarely ever cut all the way through but if I do, I just use a little tape to fix as good as new. I don’t use anything to fold with other than my fingers. Works great for the mountain folds but the valleys can be a pain.

 

[Zaff]

I've been using the back (dull) side of the cutting blade with a ruler to help keep the lines straight for the tabs. For folds within the piece itself, I either free-hand it or use flat jeweler's pliers like these. Notice that the pliers don't have any grooves or teeth, which means it won't chew up the paper and if used right it will make clean, straight folds without the risks that can come from scoring.

 

[MissingSpartan7]

I'm more fond of using my hands. I don't trust myself to score lines properly.
Mountain fold are done by hand. Valley folds, I'll fold against the edge of a dull blade. Small folds, I'll use the pliers off a multitool/leatherman.

I'm yet to make a fold I'm unhappy with.

 

[Motion26]

Its great to see so many of you sharing your thoughts, Yeah it really seems like the majority like using the razor method - good to know!

 

[Jason 078]

I score it with the back of my exacto. I actually files the rear of the blade down with a fine sharpening tool, so it won't really cut through the paper. I do this for both valley and mountains. The cuts go through at least half the paper, so the folds are rather easy.

As for folds on my project, I don't really like to sand down too many edges, so I generally turn my Flat Folding Lines Threshold down to about 160. That keeps the pieces smooth and I can just bend them around how I need them rather than folding them (thus taking out one step of the sanding). Though, you should be wary and make sure to separate any lines that might work better when bent.

 

[Runemaster117]

Before scoring i use 2 highlighters to identify my mountain amd valley folds. When scoring I use a joint knife and a fine tip ball point pen to get a crisp straight line. From there I hand fold seeing the highlighter markings on either side of the line. It comes out very nice and neat.

 

[RobotChicken]

I use two X-acto knives (in two handles of different color so I remember which one is which) - one for scoring and one for cutting. I score using the backside of a dull blade and don't use much pressure. The score is just for weakening the paper to control where it will fold (path of least resistance, you know). Too much pressure and the paper's surface is broken and that leads to rough frayed edges which I don't like (even though they disappear with resin). I fold against the same metal straight edge that I use for cutting with the other knife. Very tiny folds (which I get a lot of from the scale I'm building at) are done using tweezers. I do all my pep under a magnifier lamp so everything is precise, and that which looks good under magnification just looks magnificent when viewed normally.

The only problem I have sometimes is the cardstock thickness on minuscule parts can distort the seams. Unfortunately, Pepakura doesn't seem to take paper thickness into account when printing the parts. For larger builds this probably isn't any problem, but when parts are small it gets to be an issue. It would be cool if Pepakura had a field in its printing options for entering paper thickness and would account for it when printing tabs and edges. It currently prints everything as if the paper has zero thickness.

 

[glasscutter]

I print the parts in color. Cut lines black, mountain fold red, valley fold green. Then I score with the back of an old exacto blade.