Weaving with locked crossings

Recently I've been interested in weaving with quad-faced weave openings because of the ability of this traditional form of weaving to change shape by deforming in shear, and then I paradoxically switched to wanting to lock the crossings at 90 degrees so that very open weaves can stand up on their own.

Thin, flat weavers can be locked together at a fixed position and angle of crossing with four side notches in each weaver. In an x-ray view of the completed locked crossing, the respective notches just barely overlap. For a 90-degree crossing the overlap areas form a square (the notches on each weaver may not appear to be arranged in a square because the locus of overlap is eccentrically located on each notch.)

These photos are of Diamond Weft. I used an earlier version of locked crossings with just two notches per weaver in They Urned It (a data sculpture based on the expansion of the Fed balance sheet), but using just two notches relies on a certain interplay between the surface curvature and the notch location to keep the crossing locked.

While it may seem it would be difficult to engage all four pairs of notches at a crossing, if the material is thin and flexible enough, engaging the fourth pair of notches is a move similar to getting the last corner down in the familiar weave method of closing the flaps on a cardboard box.

Here are some accurately cut paper weavers with a 1/8" punch used to shape the bottom of the notch, along with an "X-ray" view of the interlocked crossing.