Yasu Tanaka F1 Jaguar



Finished F1 Jaguar

Recently I finished building the Jaguar Formula 1 car by Yasu Tanaka. I’d wanted to build one for some time, and I needed a picture for my menus, so it seemed like time to do it.

This build was my first attempt at clear-coating the parts sheets before assembly. I’m very pleased with the end result, but I did find that the clear coat interfered with gluing in a number of places, and I had to carefully scrape the clear coat off to allow the glue to adhere better.

Overall the kit is excellent and I would recommend it, but read further for a few cautions. The present instructions consist of a series of photos with (very) brief text but use small, low resolution images. There is also a numbered schematic that identifies all the parts and where they go. The schematic is actual size so you can easily compare pieces with the schematic. Higher resolution images would help immensely, and familiarity with Formula 1 cars would help too. It took me some extra time to figure out where some parts went and how to fold them since I know next to nothing about the subject other than they look cool and go very fast. I’ve included some pictures from my build below. Perhaps they will be helpful to someone.

The finished model is 13.5 cm long (5.25 inches). If I were to build another one of Tanaka’s kits I think I would enlarge it 25 to 50%. Some of the parts were very small, and I don’t generally mind small parts, so that’s saying something. In the end I’m very happy with the finished model and am eager to build another F1 car in a larger scale and with more detail.

Enjoy the pictures!

Steve

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Modular Origami Ornament

A couple of years ago my son and I were Christmas shopping at the local mall. Numerous vendors rent tables in the mall at this time of year, and at one of these we found a delightful young Asian lady selling these beautiful modular origami ornaments. Being interested in all things paper I stopped to ask her about them. Not only did she tell me all about them, she gave me a copy of the instructions, showed me how to fold the pieces, how to assemble them, and how to assemble the final product. We gratefully bought one of her ornaments (for a mere 8$) and carried on with our shopping.

As the following Christmas approached I finally got arounMy First Modular Origami Ornamentd to trying one myself. This, one, in simple red and green became a Christmas gift for my mother.  I didn’t have any good origami paper, so this is a plain “folding paper” which is the same color on both sides. Traditional origami paper is colored on one side and white on the other.

I was quite pleased with the result of my My Second Modular Origami Ornamentfirst ornament (and my mother loved it, of course),  so, when I finally got hold of some proper origami paper I had to make another one. You can see how the white underside adds detail to the individual “flower” sections in the final product.

If you’re interested in learning more you’ll find an excellent tutorial on this particular ornament at “Folding Trees“.  An excellent collection illustrating the amazing variety that can be realized with this technique can be found at Kusudama.me. And of course, if you search for “kusudama” you’ll find hundreds more.

Oh, and last but not least, I have to share a great laugh I got as I was uploading the images for this post.  My typing skills are average at best, and after uploading the first image I was typing the caption “My First Origami Ornament”. However, I made a couple of typos and got “Modular Origasmi POrnament“. What are the chances of two typos working so well together?

Enjoy!

Posted in Modular Origami, Origami | 2 Comments