Cardboard Tie Fighter

For your own Cardboard Tie Fighter you will need all of the following materials and tools:

(Be sure to be safe when using your craft knife, and always cut on a cutting board of some kind)

MATERIALS:

Cardboard

White Glue

Masking Tape

Paint

Toothpicks

TOOLS:

Weights for gluing

Pencil

Ruler

Compass

Craft Knife

Cutting Board

Popsicle Stick

In this step we are starting with the hexagonal (6-sided) prism that will form the cross brace that will connect the cockpit with the end wings.

Cut a piece of cardboard 10 inches long so that the corrugation runs the length of the measurement. Once you have cut the cardboard to 10 inches, you are then going to start to carve out the one side of the piece. Every piece of cardboard is a little different, so these measurements may vary according to the cardboard you are using. I cut down the 10 inch length every fourth corrugation. ONLY cut through the one side of the cardboard. You will then need to carve out your cut so that there is room for the cardboard to fold. You will need six of these sides that will fold together to create your hexagonal prism. Once you have six, cut the cardboard the length of the corrugation (your 10 inch length) leaving one or two more corrugations. You will use the extra to create a tab that will help you to glue the prism together. Remove the one side of the cardboard and the corrugation so that just the one side of paper remains. This is your tab to glue the cross brace together. You can see this in the pictures.

Now that the cross brace is cut, put white glue the length of the tab that you have included at one end of the cardboard brace piece. Fold the brace so that it is in it's hexagonal shape. Add a piece of tape to secure the brace so it won't unravel. Once the glue and tape are in place, use some kind of light weight that is at least as long as the brace (I chose a book) to hold the tab down to the brace. Be sure that the tab is facing down onto your table surface so it gets glued in place.

This is the piece of the Tie Fighter and involves a fair bit of cardboard and cutting. But the outcome is well worth it.

In order to create the cockpit sphere we are going to cut out many cardboard circles of varying sizes to then glue them together to create a sort of sphere.

Use your compass to draw out your circles. You will need the following circles:

6 circles with a radius of 2 and 1/2 inches

4 circles with a radius of 2 and 3/8 inches

2 circles with a radius of 2 and 1/4 inches

2 circles with a radius of 2 and 1/8 inches

2 circles with a radius of 2 inches

2 circles with a radius of 1 and 7/8 inches

2 circles with a radius of 1 and 3/4 inches

2 circles with a radius of 1 and 5/8 inches

2 circles with a radius of 1 and 1/2 inches

As you can see, each size of circle reduces by 1/8 of an inch. This will create the general spherical shape once they are glued together.

Once the circles are drawn, you can cut them all out.

For this step, arrange your circles with the largest in the middle, and both ends descending in size down to the smallest circle. This will give you a roughly spherical shape to your construction.

Once you have them in the correct order, you can start to glue them.

Be sure to glue every circle to the next circle, to be sure that your sphere doesn't come undone.

As you can see from the images, you should use toothpicks to secure the circle in place so that they don't move once the glue is applied. This will allow the sphere to dry in the correct shape and not deform during drying.

Lastly, put a weight on top of the sphere on one of the flat sides. This will help the sphere to dry in place and not separate.

Allow to glue overnight.

This was my favourite part of the construction because it involved attention to detail, and a very creative process for detailing the wings using the cardboard corrugation.

Each wing is in an irregular hexagon shape. This means that it doesn't have all the same angles in it, and so it creates a kind of 'squished' hexagon.

First, cut out four rectangles that are 10 inches by 8 and 1/2 inches.

Next, mark the centre of the 10 inch side, so mark the side at 5 inches. For the 8 and 1/2 inch sides, place a mark at 2 and 1/4 and also at 6 and 1/4. Using your pencil and ruler, connect the 2 and 1/4 mark to the 5 inch mark on the same side, and do the same with the 6 and 1/4 mark and the 5 inch mark on it's side. This will result in four triangles in the corners of the rectangles that will be cut off.

Proceed to use your craft knife to cut off the excess triangles.

Not that we have hexagons for the wings, we need to mark the middle of each wing panel.

Using your ruler, lay it across opposite corners and make a mark in the middle of the panel. Do that for each of the 3 pairs of opposite corners. This will create a 6 pointed star in the middle. This will be very important for creating the dividers on the wing panels. See the first image for reference.

Using your popsicle stick (just because it is a great size, and if you need a mid-build snack, well there you go!), mark an outside border around one side of each hexagon. Then, still using the popsicle stick, connect each point of the centre star to it's corresponding corner of the hexagon. This will create the pattern seen in the second picture.

Once the four panels are all marked completely, it is time to start cutting our the one side of paper on your hexagons. With your craft knife, lightly cut through only the one side of the cardboard paper. Once you have cut the paper for one of the triangles inside the hexagon, you can gently peel the paper off. This may leave behind little bits of the paper. To remedy this, I used the back edge of the knife to help scrap off the extra little bits of paper, while not cutting through the corrugation.

Continue with this process until all 24 triangular pieces of corrugation are revealed beneath.

Now you have four hexagonal wings, but we only want two. Glue together the sides that are still fully paper, so that each wing will have the corrugation revealed on both sides. Be sure to use a gentle weight (like a book) to keep the two sides of each wing together while the glue dries.

Next we are crafting support pieces that will connect our wings to the hexagonal brace that goes through the middle of our Tie Fighter.

For this, we again need circles! Don't worry, this list is much shorter...

2 circles with a radius of 2 inches

2 circles with a radius of 1 and 7/8 inches

2 circles with a radius of 1 and 3/4 inches

4 circles with a radius of 1 and 5/8 inches

4 circles with a radius of 1 and 1/2 inches

With these circles we are creating four different objects. Take one of each of the circles and order them from largest down to smallest. Be sure to centre each circle on the larger one beneath it. Glue these circles together. Repeat this step again. We now have two, 5 circle objects. These will become our inside connectors

With the remaining circles, glue one of the 1 and 5/8 inch circles with one of the 1 and 1/2 inch circles. Do this twice.

You can see one of the finished and glued connectors in the first image.

We are now going to create hexagonal shapes from the circles. Using your pencil and ruler, draw lines on the largest circle to create a hexagon. Now, using your craft knife, cut on the lines, while angling the knife blade inwards to create a tapered hexagon as you can see in the 3rd image.

For the two, 2 circle outside details, cut these into tapered hexagons as well.

Our cockpit is generally spherical in shape, but needs to be smoothed out a bit.

Using your craft knife, gently taper the cardboard layers down so that one circle's edge connects to the next circle and forms a relatively smooth, circular shape on the sides.

See the picture above. The left side has been tapered, while the right side still needs to be cut down.

In order to connect all of these pieces together we need to cut the shape of our brace into them. Our brace is hexagonal, so we are cutting a hexagon through the centre of the cockpit and the supports.

Take your sphere and hexagonal brace and trace the end of the brace onto the middle of the flat side of the sphere.

Take your supports and hexagonal brace and trace the end of the brace onto the middle of both of the supports.

With your craft knife, cut the hexagon shape through all three objects.

You will have to be patient with this step, and careful. If you glue on the inside of your sphere is still wet, I suggest waiting until it dries. It is much easier to cut when it is dry. I know from trial and error.

We now have everything cut and ready to assemble. All the pieces can go together and be glued at once. There is no need to do this at different times.

First, thread the brace through the cockpit, and centre the cockpit. Glue the edges where the brace and cockpit meet to keep it in place and secure.

Next, thread the interior supports onto the hexagonal brace to form the inside supports for the wings. Glue these to the brace

After the supports are in place, glue the wings to the end of the brace and to the interior support pieces.

Lastly, glue the outside detail hexagons in the middle of the wings on the outside.

In order to have this stay together while the glue dries, stand the Tie Fighter up on one end. It will balance well. Put a light weight on the top to lightly compress the glued connections.

You now have an assembled Tie Fighter.

I chose a traditional black look for my Tie Fighter and am quite happy with the simplistic color scheme, though you can be as crazy or traditional as you like.

Want a pink and purple Tie Fighter? Go for it!

Want a Tie Fighter in the colors of your favorite team? Do it!

This is a great way to personalize your Tie Fighter, or pay tribute to the original construct! Either way, you now have an awesome Cardboard Tie Fighter!