DIY kaleidoscope

Jeroen · Post by **Jeroen** » Sun Feb 27, 2011 10:24 am

hi guys. I found a 'build your own kaleidoscope' kit at my local museum shop and bought one. It's basically a bunch of cardboard tubes, 3 mirrors, plastic rings, beads (which can be substituted with almost anything) etc. Assembly is not too difficult but when it is finished it looks a bit dull.

I printed some BoC images (definitely need higher resolution) to photo paper, and shoddily pasted them to the cardboard with double sided tape. Despite drawings and measurements, the thing looks like it was decorated by a 5 year old, but ah well, i'll consider it a prototype. Of course it doesn't even come close to the original (which i'd love to own but really can't afford) but sometimes it's fun to make stuff yourself. Here are some pics:

Oh, and if someone has done this before, which I suppose is quite likely, please post your own!

Saakki · Post by **Saakki** » Sun Feb 27, 2011 10:43 am

Lol nice! I was thinking about buying one make your own kit and do the same as you. Pretty cheap those build your own kits. But the final product of your looks great though I would have used glue instead of double sided tape..

Jeroen · Post by **Jeroen** » Sun Feb 27, 2011 12:38 pm

Saakki wrote:Lol nice! I was thinking about buying one make your own kit and do the same as you. Pretty cheap those build your own kits. But the final product of your looks great though I would have used glue instead of double sided tape..

thanks! all i can say is: go for it!

the tape works really well and is easy to apply on the round surface without bumps or creases. The hard part is having more than one piece of photo to stick on there. Next time I would make a digital collage print and get one big sheet for the bottom part and a small one for the top.

Saakki · Post by **Saakki** » Sun Feb 27, 2011 12:48 pm

Kool. I found one that has liquid in it just like the Geogaddiscope. It also has "gemstones" in it : https://www.werkhaus.de/shop/product_in ... ine--.html .Slap your own BoC pictures on it and tah-daa!

polar sky · Post by **polar sky** » Sun Feb 27, 2011 9:33 pm

I bought a cheap one from our history museum made a little video holding the camera up to the viewing eye of the kaleidoscope while walking around so you can see how neat it looks for a couple of bucks...

747Music · Post by **747Music** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 3:48 am

polar sky wrote:I bought a cheap one from our history museum made a little video holding the camera up to the viewing eye of the kaleidoscope while walking around so you can see how neat it looks for a couple of bucks...

Cool!

I do have one of the official BoC kaleidoscopes and I love it. I've always had a fascination with them as a kid. So I was so happy when I found out BoC had an official one, and even happier when someone agreed to part with theirs and sell it to me.

23degreesdream · Post by **23degreesdream** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 12:36 pm

Good effort, this is very Blue Peter (retro BBC kids tv show for the non-British on here, famous for instructions on building things out cardboard, glue and tape. Still going, i believe), i'm sure BoC would approve

polar sky · Post by **polar sky** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 2:57 pm

http://www.kaleidoscopesusa.com/makeAscope.htm

PadraïK · Post by **PadraïK** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 3:25 pm

I'm lucky, i have kids so I have the perfect excuse to go to toystores and buy stuff like that. I got a good solid exemple for 1 euro.

I wish it got a mixslider on the side to fade between regular and caleidoscopic view.