| Start
by choosing your turning stock and measuring it to
cut. You will need a piece of wood at least 1 1/2"
square by 2 1/4" long. Cut the piece to length,
making sure the ends are square and true. If necessary,
use a disk sander or barrel trimmer to square up the
ends. |
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| Next,
we need to drill the blank. The best way to do this
with the size bit we're using is with a drill press
and a blank clamp. The clamp is a standard wood clamp
with 2 notches cut out of it. This helps to center
the blank, even if it isn't square. Drill the blank
all the way through with the 13/16" forstner
bit as close to center as possible. This will give
you more stock to work with in the design of the kaleidoscope
body. |
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| Mount
the blank using the kit bushings on a standard pen
turning mandrel. You can use extra bushings from other
kits (pens, etc.) or simply drill a 7mm hole into
a piece of scrap and use it to space the kaleidoscope
blank towards the headsotck end of the mandrel. |
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| Using
a roughing gouge, turn the body round down to the
maximum diameter for your design. |
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| Next,
use a spindle gouge to shape the body to the desired
shape. Curves and such will give the body a more tactile
feel for the person holding the kaleidoscope. |
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| As
a final step, I use a Crown Skewchigouge to make a
final cut, leaving a fairly smooth finish and leaving
the body ready for sanding. |
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| Depending
on the finish left from the tool work, sand the piece
starting at the lowest grit necessary and sand to
600 grit. I usually start at 100 - 150 grit to make
sure any stray tool marls are removed. |
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| Once
the body has been sanded to a smooth finish, I use
friction polish or French polish to apply a fast,
durable finish. Apply the friction polish to a paper
towel. With the lathe off, saturate the piece and
let sit for a few seconds. Then turn the lathe back
on to about 600 rpm and apply the same paper towel
to the piece. The heat build up between the paper
towel and the piece will burnish in the friction polish
and create a beatiful shine. Move the warm towel up
and down the body until the entire piece is polished. |
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| Remove
the body from the lathe and let's head over to the
workbench and assemble the rest of the parts. |
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| Here
you can see the parts to be assembled. The body, the
mirror tube, the end caps, lenses, mirrors and a bag
of small gems. Start by assembling the end cap. This
is the one with the large opening. Insert one of the
plastic disks into the end cap. Next, insert the cardboard
spacer making sure it sits all the way down. Now we
can take the bag of small gems and fill the cardboard
spacer about 1/2 way. I found that this meant pretty
much the enitre bag. I filled the spacer 3/4 full,
inserted the last plastic disk and then shook the
end cap lightly to make sure the gems would have enough
room to move. If the gems can not move, the kaleidoscope
will never change when rotated. |
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|
Let's
put together the eye cap. There are only 3 parts,
but it's a little trickier than the end cap. First,
insert the lens with the convex (domed) side facing
away from the eye hole. Then insert and secure the
c-clip. This is the 'hard' part of the project.
The c-clip needs to sit into a small recess deep
in the eye cap. The easiest way to make this happen
is to secure one end of the c-clip and hold it with
your finger. Then using a dental pick or even an
unbent paperclip, press the c-clip the rest of the
way around into the recess. Make sure you don't
scratch the lens while securing the clip.
|
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| Next
come the mirrors...these are the length of the tube,
and only fit if aligned in a perfect triangle. The
directions state to use tape to align the mirrors
and then insert them with the tape holding them together,
using additional tape if necessary to keep the mirrors
secure. On my kit, I actually needed to use the tape
to align the mirrors (a interesting task) and then
once I had one end of the aligned mirrors in the tube,
I found it necessary to remove the tape completely
for the mirrors to fit in. Fortunately, the tube kept
them aligned and in place. Once the mirrors are in
place, screw the end cap onto one end of the tube.
Insert the tube into the body until it sits flush.
Lastly, screw the eye cap onto the other end. |
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| Here
you can see the finished kaleidoscope. I used Brazilian
Rosewood for the body, which polishes up very nicely.
Red colored woods compliment the gold end caps very
well I find. |
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| Here's
a view inside the finished kaleidoscope. As you turn
it in your hand, the patterns will change. Have fun! |
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