Kaleidoscopes

Around 1985 we saw some craft kaleidoscopes at a local gift store in Eureka CA which inspired me to try my hand at making a fancy "gift kaleidoscope. Kaleidoscopes particularly intriguing as one of the earliest nineteenth century "science toys", patented in 1817.  At the time I was designing them it turned out that thin walled brass tubing was standard for sink tail-pipes and are of an ideal size for a hand-held instrument.  Simultaneously stained glass was undergoing a renaissance as a craft, making fancy colored glass available through local craftspeople. For each kaleidoscope I used glass cutters to prepare the slender mirrors for the kaleidoscope from thin mirror tiles, assembling three mirrors with silicone rubber on the seams into a prism that fit snugly into the brass tube, as seen in the exploded view for kaleidoscope 2 and the shaft closeup for kaleidoscope 3 below.

I ended up making at least six kaleidoscopes between 1985 and 1986 (I still have a couple of stained glass disks hanging in my shop and old brass tubes if inspiration hits again). The first went to my mother, followed by variations made for my wife, her mother and other relatives and friends.  We now have three examples, my wife's and the two we inherited back from my mother and my mother-in-law when they each passed. You can see images of them below.

For my first kaleidoscope, which I gave to my mother, I turned the eyepiece from a small section of wood from a short Ebony branch given to me by an ex-student who picked it up on his Peace Corp tour in Kenya. I was learning how to shape metal at the time, so I used my new planishing hammer to make the decorative hammered grip in the center of the tube. The shaft was modified from a surplus potentiometer extension (I used these because they had a flat hemi-cylindrical end about 3/4" long that I could rivet to the inside of the tube) with the diameter reduced on a lathe and then threaded with a die to fit a commercial acorn nut. The single  eight-panel stained-glass disk was made using copper "stained-glass tape", tin solder and wedges I cut from colored glass scraps.

For the ssecond kaleidoscope I used walnut to turn the eyepiece, once again using a planishing hammer to make a smaller decorative grip between double scribed lines. The shaft was again made from a potentiometer extensionrivets. , and again riveted to the tube with small brass brads. For the second and all subsequent kaleidoscopes I added a second disk requiring a longer shaft. For a more interesting optical effecgt I made the two disks with different numbers of colored glass wedges, six and eight respe3ctively. The new arragement needed soacers  and I made custom cap screws on the lathe with tap-threaded holes. The parts laid out in order are seen in the exploded view below. I also made a custom stand from scraps of walnut.

My third version was somewhat simplified and now made with pats crafted from stock materials. Once again the eyepiece is made from figured walnut, but I did add decorative burned in rings. The shaft was turned from brass stock, with threads cut with a die on the end, but this time I slotted the end to slip over the tube and now only a single rivet was required to secure it (an aluminum rivet adds a bit of contrast, see image beow). As previously, the eyepiece was secured to the tube with miniature brass brads (see the image below)..