Making puck weavers from aluminum flashing

A puck weaver made from aluminum flashing.

Cut strips that are about 0.05" narrower than the intended distance, s, between the "square" folds (in the pictured weavers s = 2.5". The strips should be at least 4s long.

Make the square folds, trimming off any excess beyond the fourth square. When folding begin in the middle and work outward—never reaching the edge. Never press closer than about 1/4" from the edge to prevent bending the edge in too sharp a radius.

After cutting and making the square folds.

Make one set of diagonal folds, ideally, due to the narrowed width, these should follow a 45-degree line and fall just short of intersecting the square folds. (Intersecting folds over stress the metal.) If the piece is flipped over so that the square folds show as mountain folds, the diagonal folds show as valley folds. Note that you must skip a square when making these two diagonal folds.

After the first set of diagonal folds.

Now make the remaining two diagonal folds which are aligned 90 degrees to the first.

After folding.

With scissors or tin snips round off the four corners.

After rounding the corners.

Theoretically you should adjust the square folds to a 90 degree dihedral angle and the diagonal folds to a 70.5 degree dihedral angle, but you may want to compromise with your intended surface. The final state of the square folds will always be 90 degrees of dihedral angle, but such tight bends may be difficult to work with in a very small basket. The final angle of the diagonal folds will vary with surface and whether you are working points in or points out.