RFID Shielded Minimalist Wallet

Step by step instructions on building your own RFID shielded minimalist wallet -

Items Needed - 

• Single sheet of A4 paper
• Duct Tape 
• Scissors 
• Aluminium Foil 
• Super Glue 
• Ton of patience  
• Surgical precision glueing required

fig 1

• Fold all corners of the paper starting vertically to exact measurements as seen in fig 1

fig 2

• Fold the paper again as seen in fig 2

fig 3

• Fold vertical right side & then horizontal top as seen in fig 3 
• Vertical right fold was not done in final product as it was extremely hard to bend the double aluminium foil + paper + duct tape. ONLY horizontal top was folded twice on itself
• End result is 4 sleeves as seen in fig 3
• On re building V 2.0 of this, the double fold horizontal + vertical was discarded, resulting in even slimmer wallet

fig 4

fig 5

• Cards will occupy top & bottom slots with middle slot reserved for cash/ credit card receipts or more cards
• Insert 2 cards on top / centre / bottom slots to get a idea how it will look like, as seen in fig 5
• Because of the number of folds, no card will fall off from the bottom on any of the 3 slots
• Remove all cards after intending the creases on entire structure & unfold it completely to appear as fig 1
• Paper should retain the 1st  folded arrangement on all corners as seen in fig 1, this aids in more rigid final design structure 

fig 6

• Lay down some kitchen foil that is slightly larger than the pre folded paper & wrap it around the 4 corners starting horizontally so it completely wraps the paper
• Straighten all the edges carefully as the foil is very brittle at this stage

fig 7

• Take another piece of kitchen foil & wrap the pre wrapped structure again, make sure there are no gaps as seen in fig 7

fig 8

• Double RFID shielded structure emerges now as seen in fig 8

fig 9

• Take a single long piece of duct tape and wrap carefully horizontally so that half the tape is on one side of the two sided structure
• Why you start with the edges first is, successive duct tape wrap slightly overlaps each layer so it doesnt come un done, as seen in fig 10
• One neednt cut exactly to length of the paper because when we put more tape on vertical sections, any loose ends will self seal on itself

fig 10

• One side of the paper should look like fig 10, repeat same for other side 
• Now start folding this structure as seen in fig 2 & fig 3. It will be difficult with all the foil + duct tape 
• Straighten out any crooked sides and put more tape along the horizontal double fold seam as seen in fig 3
• Trick is to cut slightly larger piece of tape and slit it in half on top & bottom ends. Then fold one on each other as seen in fig 11

fig 11

• Duct tape is cut slightly larger than length of the structure & split vertically indicated in red folds downwards on opposite side of above figure. Second split section folds over and downwards on this side indicated in blue. If done properly, you will only get one seam on top right as seen in fig 12

fig 12

fig 13

• Finished product with 3 slots 

fig 14

• 4 cards on top slot, 3 cards on bottom slot, middle slot simulated credit card receipts

fig 15

• Cards on top & bottom slots with empty middle slot 

fig 12

• Seal all edges as seen in fig 12  taking extreme care lifting all visible edges slightly & putting Super Glue  
• Does one need to superglue the inside seams of each slot ? thats upto the user but take care not to superglue the slots together in the process
• After 3 days use, inside seams [ which were not super glued ]  started separating. Therefore having to dismantle entire wallet to fix them.
• Due to cards being semi sharp, constant removal & insertion resulted in structural failure of left side wall [ fig 15 ]. A U bent cardboard wrapped in duct tape was inserted in V2 of wallet

Old [ Black ] vs New [ Minimalist wallet in grey ]

V2 Wallet rebuild  -

fig 16

• When trying to dismantle the wallet, i had to cut  the duct tape & i cut through the double foil + insulation by accident
• Damaged sections were re duct taped and entire wallet was opened up completely   [ fig 2 ] to apply super glue to each and every seam on both sides

fig 17

• Insertion of U bend structural side wall support reinforced in duct tape

fig 18

• Removal & Insertion of cards now wont damage the side wall anymore 

ZERO WASTAGE ACHIEVED IN THIS BUILD

Sorry for poor english, trillion thoughts were going on 

in my mind when writing this blog