The first thing you must do to make a model of any polyhedron is to make an accurate drawing for the required parts. For the convex polyhedra these are simply polygons of 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, and 10 sides. But you must remember that in any one polyhedron all the edges must be the same length. Hence the polygons belonging to one polyhedron must have sides of the same length. As you can see from a drawing, the decagon, for example, is very large compared to a triangle with the same edge length. You must keep this in mind when making the models and choose a suitable scale. This will be determined by how you want to use the polyhedron and where you intend to display it. In the following descriptions of the individual models a value is given for the circumradius, that is, the radius of a circumscribing sphere, in terms of a polyhedral edge length of 2 units. This will help you to determine how big the completed model will turn out to be. Doubling the radius gives you the diameter and this can be taken as an approximate value for the height of the completed model.

Once you have carefully drawn the parts, namely the required polygons, it is best to make a template. This is done by placing the drawing of the polygon over a piece of card or stiff paper. Index card stock or coloured tag is recommended. Then prick through at each vertex with a probing needle. The kind found in a biology dissecting kit serves the purpose very well. You may then draw pencil lines from hole to hole and trim the card with scissors leaving about a quarter inch border all around outside the pencil lines. This is your template.