What I want to do

I'm thinking about easy to make and easy to manufacture paper linkages that require few materials and minimize slack or flexibility but are easy to open and close.

My attempt and results

Buttons are easy and familiar but require a needle and extra thread to install. The "lashing" style is a nice alternative but I'm not sure of its durability. What's nice is that both can be done under tension.

I originally thought of this type of envelope closing technique:

Rubber bands can be used for either type, and are easier to install but less firm, since they're elastic.

Questions and next steps

I'd like to try this out on the attachment between the Oil Testing Kit and the Spectrometer v3. I wonder how durable it is and how rigid the connection can remain. Maybe three points of connection?

Why I'm interested

Especially with the die cutting and paper cutting methods we're using to manufacture the spectrometer kits, cheap, easy, but reliable and removable connection techniques with paper would be really useful. So this is a bit of an abstract set of tests but I hope they'll help us out with future designs.