Scale Model of Boeing 777-300ER, Made from Manila Folders

https://www.lucaiaconistewart.com/model-777

by uticus • 2 years ago

561 90 2 years ago

0_____03• 2 years ago

Someone made a comment here regarding magic recently that this reminded me of.

Sometimes you can make something appear magical by spending far more time on the effect than anyone would ever think to do.

Stunning work. I admire and envy the focus.

hinkley3• 2 years ago

The same can be true of magic.

Penn and Teller’s Fool Us had a couple of contestants per year that did a trick the hardest way possible. A couple times they gave the person the prize even though they knew how it was done. Like the people who “shuffled” an entire deck into a specific order, and/or used precise cuts rather than using marked cards or swapping the deck.

There have been a couple people they’ve had back three times even if they knew how they did it, because they’re just so good.

ska• 2 years ago

Sometimes you can make something appear magical by spending far more time on the effect than anyone would ever think to do.

This is as good a definition of stage magic as anything, I suspect.

the_af4• 2 years ago

To be clear: if they absolutely know how the magician did it, they do NOT award the prize.

They do award the prize if they know there's more than one way the person could have done it, but they cannot tell for sure which one was it.

And they make it clear their show is not about the prize anyway, it's about the wonder of watching cool magic acts. The prize is a gimmick (but still, it's always fair and never staged).

They always celebrate good magic, regardless of whether they can figure it out or not.

stevage• 2 years ago

Yeah or the guy who can pour a whole deck of cards onto the table and grab the right card out of the air. It's not a trick, he's just insanely practised at it.

lisper• 2 years ago

The detail on this thing is just insane. The amount of time and effort put in is comparable to what it takes to build an actual aircraft.

[UPDATE] Just to clarify: building an actual jetliner is obviously orders of magnitude harder than building this model. But I think building this model is probably comparable to building a light aircraft like this one: https://www.vansaircraft.com/rv-14/

wslh• 2 years ago

Your point was clear to me, we can say that at the individual*n (n>=1) level of effort is comparable.

Liftyee• 2 years ago

I cannot begin to comprehend how this was put together. Unbelievable amounts of dedication must have been involved.

ComputerGuru2• 2 years ago

(2014)

I remember seeing this when it was first making the rounds (though I thought it was earlier than ‘14, but that’s what all the press links date to). Incredible.

mzs• 2 years ago

He's been at it since May 2008 and the latests updates on instagram are from this year: https://www.instagram.com/luca.iaconi.stewart/

ComputerGuru2• 2 years ago

Thanks for (possibly) vindicating my memory! I recall seeing this circa 2010 +/- a year or so.

polishdude20• 2 years ago

How does he come up with the 2d designs? They need to all fit together right? I feel like there some missing step between the reference material and the 2D illustrator designs.

gavmor• 2 years ago

I'm interested in this, too! I've been mulling over the design of 3D puzzles from 2D, laser-cut MDF.

gibspaulding2• 2 years ago

Look into Fusion360. I’ve used it for similar projects in the past with some success.

noduerme• 2 years ago

I've never tried it, but I wonder if designing in 3D and then printing out UV maps would be a good way to go? You'd at least end up with all the polygons and an outer shape to cut out, although whether you could fold paper along the edges is another story.

SvenL• 2 years ago

On one page he mentioned that the airline supplied material which he used to create the designs in Adobe Illustrator.

gibspaulding2• 2 years ago

This threw me off too. Sure Illustrator is probably a better tool for this than pen and paper, but it seems like far from the best choice. I guess that just makes this all the more impressive.

ninalanyon2• 2 years ago

If only I had this degree of focus and willingness to work so hard on all the boring bits!

fsckboy• 2 years ago

all the boring bits

your problem is not focus or willingness, it's being motivated by excitement rather than perfection. it's about the object, take yourself and how you feel out of the equation.

berkes• 2 years ago

This is also a personality trait. Where ADHD has this in the extreme.

I, having ADHD, cannot do any task if it's not motivated by excitement and newness (or forced by raw discipline, which is extremely energy consuming).

Your comment sounds like "it's just a matter of changing your mindset". Maybe I read that wrong. But I know it's not just mindset changing. It's, e.g. with ADHD fundamentally wired into a brain.

dylan604• 2 years ago

For people that enjoy this type of work, what you call the boring bits are the exciting parts.

0_____03• 2 years ago

The act is the reward. If you can convince yourself this is true for various things, you get really good at them fast.

ninalanyon2• 2 years ago

Of course. Bit it's an awfully big IF.

BillSaysThis• 2 years ago

If he adds AI, can he make it fly?

SAI_Peregrinus• 2 years ago

With the application of sufficient force, any object can be made to fly at least once. No AI necessary.

froggertoaster• 2 years ago

Humans are just amazing.

qwertox• 2 years ago

This is the kind of work billionaires should pay millions for as if it were a painting, and display it proudly.

foxglacier• 2 years ago

I'm sure he'd have plenty of offers if he was going to sell it. As long as it really requires a decade of work to produce, somebody might value it at the labor cost as a kind of proof-of-work. But what if he does another copy in only few months by reusing all the part designs? Its value could be destroyed. Probably has to become famous then die so that there's no chance of the same creator flooding the market.

hk__2• 2 years ago

At first I was confused by this "Made from Manila folders" which I didn’t know; I thought these folders were some kind of information from something that happened in Manila, and that the author did the scale model based on what he had found in them

loloquwowndueo• 2 years ago

Yeah and goldbeater’s skin is not literally the skin of the actual person who beats the gold :)

lizzas2• 2 years ago

Like Manila is some tax haven that has had a wikileak?

JBiserkov• 2 years ago

http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers

numpad0• 2 years ago

Yup, it's name of a thing, what gave icons of "file folders" a distinct notch and tan color.

They were stored in "file cabinets", which can be still seen in Windows .cab file icons.

fnord77• 2 years ago

hope this ends up in a museum

ffitch2• 2 years ago

it’s very inspiring!

I wonder why manila envelopes. does envelope paper have properties uniquely fitted for this kind of modeling, or is it just nice color and suitable weight?

idlewords2• 2 years ago

These are folders, not envelopes. They are pretty stiff and hold their shape well. I bet any light card stock would do, but everyone of a certain age has experience with these folders; the fact that they're so basic makes this achievement extra special.

ffitch2• 2 years ago

I meant the folders, sorry!

Is age the factor here? feels like they’re just as ubiquitous today as they were when the author was in high school.

I certainly appreciate the idea of crafting something special out of seemingly boring material, but the remark that they were taught to model with this paper in school made me wonder of it does have advantages over basic paper or cardstock.

pseingatl• 2 years ago

The model looks cleaner than the aircraft's business class IRL, if recent videos are to be believed.

idlewords2• 2 years ago

To restore balance we need someone to make Manila folders out of a 777.

UniverseHacker• 2 years ago

And then a full scale flying 777 from Manila folders

datavirtue2• 2 years ago

Elons next project.

lizzas2• 2 years ago

And fly it to the Philippines

PaulRobinson• 2 years ago

I don't think Boeing need more ideas to cut costs and quality in engineering right now...

delichon• 2 years ago

"The Ultimate Paper Airplane | WIRED"

Ahem. https://newatlas.com/great-paper-airplane-project/21961/

IMHO the actual flight characteristics of the aircraft are inputs to the `ultimate?` predicate function.

kepler1• 2 years ago

Made out of manilla file folders is approximately correct for the state of Air India's fleet right now.

polairscience• 2 years ago

I'll comment on something different. His website is clean and awesome. Attention to detail just like the model. Love it.

sema4hacker• 2 years ago

Exactly how many millions of hours did this take?

stevesimmons• 2 years ago

The Singapore Airlines clip says that one took 750 hours and had 3000 parts.

aaronax• 2 years ago

For something vaguely similar, as in a meticulous way of making a 3D object out of 2D materials with fine details, I recommend the Metal Earth products (puzzles?) as I find them to be quite rewarding. The complexity is probably two orders of magnitude less--think 10-20 hours to assemble the pre-designed and cut pieces.

einpoklum• 2 years ago

I sympathize with how he must feel thinking about the 777-8 and 777-9 entering service soon, displacing the 300ER...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_777X

exabrial2• 2 years ago

These planes are incredible to ride on. AA runs a Charlotte <-> Munich flight... the Premium Economy exceeds expectations for the money, like sleeping in a lay-z-boy.

foooorsyth2• 2 years ago

Premium economy to MUC out of CLT always annoys me because the legs that hold the seats up can possibly be right in the middle of your under-seat space, making putting a briefcase under the seat in front of you impossible (the legs are unevenly spaced throughout the row so not all seats lose the space). They also have those fold-down footrests that I never actually use and take up more space. Paying more for a seat in which I might not even be able to access my work laptop is a bit annoying.

Man, I sound like a diva.

exabrial2• 2 years ago

I feel like any class of seating except business suffers from that "near seat storage shortage". I tend to carry a soft sided satchel instead of a case for the reasons you state: it can be jammed pretty much anywhere

datavirtue2• 2 years ago

I would get a high from the first two or three seats...and then....I would abandon the project.

zombiwoof• 2 years ago

Amazing

andrewshadura• 2 years ago

I've looked up what the hell is a manila folder, and it turned out to be a paper folder looking exactly like a Windows folder icon, even with a matching yellowish colour. Maybe I grew up and lived in all the wrong countries, but I've never seen such a folder in my life.

matthewmcg• 2 years ago

This is wonderful. The loving dedication to getting the details right reminds me of the engineer hobbyist that built a functional scale model of a Ferrari 312PB race car as shown on this classic Top Gear episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeUMDY01uUA

mNovak• 2 years ago

Would love to see the files or precut sheets released as the ultimate scale model kit. It'd be really awesome to take these files to a laser cutter and make the model out of thin aluminum sheets.

blt• 2 years ago

Excellent choice of aircraft. The 777 is one of the greatest engineering achievements of all time.

tedd4u• 2 years ago

Posted here 4 years ago (885 points / 200 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23749821

netfortius• 2 years ago

Looking at the picture captured in the youtube link, I wonder what kind of bolts are being used for the door?!? ;-)

wasabinator• 2 years ago

This is amazing. I’d feel safer flying in this than the original.

cloud-ranger• 2 years ago

There's obviously a high level of skill involved... However, if you want to experince the late 80's, change the playback speed of the landing gear video to 0.75 :D

I'm assuming the guy doesn't have kids or cats, I can't even make a cup of coffee most days without one being in the way!

I used to love to make things when I was younger but I was never this dedicated. I stopped at radio controlled models. I'm glad my mum bought me a TI99/4A when I was a a kid, so my hobby turned into my career.

globalnode• 2 years ago

1:60 scale model... i got excited for a moment based on the (misleading) title.

ChrisMarshallNY• 2 years ago

This is an awesome project!

Someone (with copious free time) is just a wee bit obsessive.

Hate to say it, but I can sort of relate (but I don't have enough free time to do something this intricate).

fasa99• 2 years ago

For sure, a lot of hard work and energy went into this project. Some say that if Boeing had that kind of energy, their planes might even fly!

nelblu• 2 years ago

The amount of dedication, passion and art is absolutely amazing. It reminds me of https://www.phildragash.com/ where he did a complete audio of the Lord of the Rings book along with music edited from the actual soundtrack. I believe it can still be downloaded from here https://archive.org/details/the-fellowship-of-the-ring_sound...

hurtmyknee• 2 years ago

This is terrific, thank you for sharing!

timnetworks• 2 years ago

Doing this all by hand shows immense skill, but printing directly onto manilla folders is talent and ingenuity.

xiphmont• 2 years ago

My God, that model is utterly beautiful.

nunez2• 2 years ago

Wow; this is amazing. I was looking into who makes their seats for business/first (I usually assume it's Rockwell Collins but it might not be) and was shocked to see how old their product is on this aircraft. The business class seats look like those from the 90s!

rayiner• 2 years ago

Air India... The 777s were purchased new in the early 2000s and not upgraded since then. https://www.businessinsider.com/air-india-economy-cabin-i-fl...

nunez2• 2 years ago

definitely looks the part.

Scale Model of Boeing 777-300ER, Made from Manila Folders

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