Introduction: Z Fold Display Board Standee

About: I am a retired Electronic Systems Engineer now pursuing my hobbies full time. I share what I do especially with the world wide student community.

I present here an easy to make 'Z Fold Display Standee' which is compact to carry and can alternatively be displayed on a flat surface using double-sided tape.

This Instructable has two novel features:

  1. It reuses old scrap foam board material form discarded No-Parking/Advertisement signs
  2. Presents a method of providing stability to the opened-out display by incorporating a method to weigh down the bottom edges.

Step 1: Materials

The Standee is built using low cost Foam board (graphic art board) re-purposed from old no-parking/advertisement boards.

The Z-Folding is implemented using cloth hinges and stability to the display in standing position is provided by metal rods inserted into cloth channels glued to the bottom.

Materials:

  1. Foam Board 12" x 18" Six Pieces
  2. Cloth for Hinges 1.5" x 5" 30 Pieces
  3. Synthetic General Purpose Glue (Fevicol general purpose white adhesive used)
  4. Stapler
  5. Steel rod 3/8" X 10" six pieces
  6. Display printout sized to 12" x 18" Six Sheets

Step 2: Hinges

We first mark the central hinge positions and a reference to the top of the boards using a marking pen.

Then we stick one half of the hinges to the board using the general purpose glue. Remember to alternate the positions on the two card edges.

Next we allow one set of glued cloth pieces to dry and then complete the hinges by gluing the other sides.

The hinges can be reinforced using staple pins.

The complete Z-fold-able boards are now ready for adding the stability cloth strips

Step 3: Standing Stability

We use six pieces of 6" x 10 " cloth folded in two and stitched along the length-wise direction at 1" intervals.

The loose flaps when glued to both sides of each board at the bottom will form a groove into which we can slide a metal rod.

When the standee is placed on a horizontal surface these rods will provide a weight at the bottom providing stability to the whole fixture.

These cloth pieces are also reinforced with staples.

Step 4: Gluing the Presentation Material

The six prints of the presentation material need to be glued to one side of the foam boards with all the z-folds opened out onto a flat surface.

We glue the presentation material onto the printed side of the no-parking/advertisement boards so that the finished display standee would have only white on the rear side and the earlier printing would be totally hidden.

Step 5: Display

Steel rods are inserted into the grooves in the cloth flaps at the bottom.

The Z-Folds are opened out and the display arranged so that all panels are visible.

For stability the weights at the bottom are alternated front and back between two sets of panels