Hand Fan

Collapsible hand fan of the “traditional” style.

This is not a “print and play” project. After printing, you'll need to spend enough time sewing the blades together that you'll forget how to make a simple knot.

Dimensions (approx):

• collapsed: 7-7/8" × 3/4" × 1-1/8" (200mm × 20mm × 30mm) [length × width × thick]
• unfolded: 7-7/8" × 13-3/4" (200mm × 350mm) [height × width]
  • this is with the maximum 180°; the width will likely be less as 25-blades targets around 150°.

Tools & Hardware:

• 2x M3 bolt, 5-10mm length
• needle
• ~50" thread
• blue painters tape (for sanity)

Instructions:

1. Print the parts:
   • 2x sides
   • 25x blades
   • 1x pin
2. Attach pin to one side with M3 bolt. Stack the blades. Attach other side with M3 bolt. Make sure to compress the blades so as to not squish one. You may need two hex keys to help counter-rotate the bolts. 
3. Loop thread in the two holes on one side. Make a knot.
4. Thread to the next blade's adjacent hole, front-to-back. Then back-to-front the next hole, then front-to-back the final hole.
5. Use blue tape to temporarily align the two blades in the overlapping position desired.  
6. Cinch up and tie a knot against the thread exiting the middle hole. 
7. Repeat from step 4 until all blades are stitched together.
8. Finally, stitch on the side and knot.

Hopefully you're better at doing this than I am.

Notes:

• Adjust the pin length or the number of blades, depending on your printer tolerances.
• Play with infill patterns!  Slice the inner blades with zero solid layers (and 4+ perimeters) and your infill of choice. I recommend at least 50% infill, otherwise it's too holey for moving air…

Add'l Notes (2025-06-19):

• With a well-tuned (maybe too much squish) printer, you can probably fit 29x blades on the as-designed pin. Adjusting (only) the z-height of the pin is probably quicker than printing more blades… (I suggest not going more than 25x blades; it makes the fan hard to hold.)
• You can probably easily fit 9 blades on a print plate. This'll give you 27 blades with 3 print jobs. Print each plate in the same color, or mix up some of the plates.
• So far, 8-perimeter, 50% infill, rectilinear or gyroid prints and looks the best. Other infills have overlapping lines that may cause tiny zits and may look worse depending on your printer.
• Not quite happy with the threading instructions above; still working on figuring this out… I think we should double back once to allow for a better knot placement (1-2-1-knot-2-3-2-knot-3).

Add'l Notes (2025-06-23):

• Stitching… the original stitching method isn't great; I'm leaving the instructions as-is for now.
• As noted on 2025-06-19, back-and-forth with two knots seems to hold better. It's definitely more annoying.
• Added a picture to show…
  • A-B.  B-A.  knot.  A-B
  • B-C.  C-B.  B-C.  knot
  • over to next blade

Add'l Notes (2025-06-23):

• Added “Side (3mm)” version, which hopefully is a bit more solid — child dropped the fan and the bottom of the side-blade snapped off under the pin hole.  Added some more thickness should help?