How to Make a Kaleidoscope Lens
Making a kaleidoscope can challenge your creativity. When creating a kaleidoscope, you have to make each individual piece. The following will show you how to make the lens for a kaleidoscope out of transparency sheets.
Things You'll Need
- Mailing tube
- Small sharp knife
- Transparency sheet
- Markers
- Scissors
- Cardboard
- Beads
- Glue gun and glue
- Packing or transparent tape
Instructions
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Making the Pieces
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1
Cut a mailing tube with a small sharp knife until it is 2 inches longer than the glass you will be using inside the kaleidoscope. Cut 1 inch off the tube to make the lens.
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2
Place that 1-inch mailing tube ring onto a transparency sheet.
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3
Trace around the ring with a magic marker. Repeat this process twice so that you have 2 circles on the transparency sheet.
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4
Cut out the 2 circles with a pair of scissors. The circles may not be exactly perfect, but it's all right if they are larger than the tracing since you can trim the transparency after you have installed it onto the lens.
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5
Cut a piece of cardboard 1-inch wide and long enough so that when it is bent in the middle, it lays perfectly within the middle of the circle in a "V" shape. All 3 sides of the "V" should touch the circle.
Assembling the Pieces
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6
Apply a thin line of glue around one side of the ring you have cut for your lens with a glue gun.
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7
Place the transparency ring onto the glue. Clean off any extra glue and trim off any extra transparency that overhangs the ring once the glue has cooled and dried.
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8
Lay the V-shaped cardboard piece you made into the center of the circle, laying on the transparency.
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9
Put some colorful beads into the circle, making sure you have some in each area of the V.
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10
Seal the beads into the lens by gluing on the second side of the transparency with your glue gun.
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11
Attach the lens onto the tube by laying it flush on one end and taping it with packaging tape or strong transparent tape.
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1
Tips & Warnings
In addition to or instead of the beads, you can color some of the transparency with different-colored markers and cut it into tiny pieces to make your kaleidoscope.
