A set of paper bellows/springs to download and make. Members can download the template at the link, thanks for signing up! There are three designs in the template file, pentagon, hexagon and nonagon (9 sides) Check out the previous blog post if you would like to design you own with a different number of sides.

Print out the pages onto standard printer paper, not card. Score along all the dotted and dashed lines then cut out the page along the surrounding line. You may have to set your printer to “Scale to Fit” to ensure that the whole template is printed out.

The three pages look like this.

Pre-crease all the dotted and dashed lines before you glue the parts together. These instructions are illustrated with the six sides spring but apply equally to the other two.

Glue along the back of the edge opposite the grey area.

Roll the tube round and glue down exactly on the edge of the greay area.

Okay – now this is fiddly and a little tricky. Take your time.

Starting one row of parallelograms from the top. Pick a parallelogram. Fold the centre diagonal as a valley fold and the four surrounding edges as hill folds.

Once done move onto the next parallelogram on the same level and repeat the process.

Work your way round to complete the row.

Repeat the process with the next row down.

Work your way right down to the end.

Complete the spring/bellows by folding in the ends noting that the hill and valley folds are swapped in the ends compared to the main body.

…now if I can just fit some sort of sound generator, perhaps a whistle or two, into this mini squeeze-box…