Paper Plane Folding Machine Gun Is A Mechanical Marvel

Paper Plane Machine Gun

A German man has just finished a very impressive Paper Airplane Machine Gun, or a Papierflieger-Maschinenpistole, which just sounds so much cooler. It actually takes a stack of paper, folds it into paper air planes and shoots them.

The device takes a stack of what looks like post-card size paper in the “clip”, forms them into paper air planes by a series of rollers and folding edges and then launches them out of the end. A cheap electric screwdriver powers the entire drive train, which allows him to shoot around 20 planes per minute (PPM?).

Sadly there’s really not too much information on how it works, nor the files to reproduce it. [Papierfliegerei], as he goes by on YouTube, decided to build this awesome contraption to show off just what 3D printers are capable of these days. He designed the whole thing in 3D CAD and had many of the parts printed off at a 3D printing company called fabberhouse.de, while the rest of the components are off the shelf.

Let’s see him upgrade that electric screwdriver with a Dremel….

[via r/videos]

44 thoughts on “Paper Plane Folding Machine Gun Is A Mechanical Marvel

      1. Ich benutze den Doppel zurück Methode, um mit Google zu übersetzen. Ich übersetze das, was ich bin zu sagen , dann habe ich in die andere Richtung zu übersetzen und sehen, wie sie wieder auf die Originalsprache kommt . Wenn etwas anders ist , versuche ich einen anderen Wortlaut .
        ——————————————————–
        I use the double back method to translate with Google . I translate what I am saying , then I have to translate in the other direction and see how it comes back to the original language . If something is different, I try a different wording.

        1. Ich benutze die “doppel-zurück” methode, um mithilfe von Google zu übersetzen. Ich übersetze das, was ich sagen will, übersetze es dann in die andere Richtung, und schaue das es in der Orginalsprache wieder richtig ankommt. Wenn etwas anders ist, versuche ich es mit einem anderen Wortlaut.

          There. I thought I’d clean up that German a little.

      1. This is a nice video to research viral distribution thru the interwebs as it uses an unique term to search for and just went viral after over half a year out of nothing. The video got “that unique thing” that leads people to share it. There must be something like a “critical mass” of attention?

    1. I’m confused – did you watch the same video I did where the mechanism is shown to fold a flat piece of paper?

      Or are you doubting that the raw paper stock was without prior modification?

    2. You mean “if you see video which shows that this gun doesn’t fold planes, you will believe that it folds planes”. Also, please see video linked in article. It looks like it indeed does fold those planes from plain sheets of paper.

  1. The only modification this thing needs is a more precise paper pickup at the start – we’ve got printers that can reliably grab a sheet off the stack every time, shouldn’t be that hard to adapt their designs or actual hardware to make this thing more reliable.

    1. And I have a printer which doesn’t reliably grab anymore but mechanism doesn’t look like it’s used up. It’s not that easy, just some small change means it stops working.

      1. yetihehe Clean the pickup roller. I have seen printers that have grabbed 10^6 pages of paper, the pickup rollers need replaced every so often, but the basic mechanical method is very reliable.

  2. Tie this thing to one or those “sub-orbital” balloon projects and start launching airplanes from 100,000 feet, have a stamp and your address on the paper and have people mail them back.

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