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Angocoellum Mirrored Sighting Device

by Kaelessin on January 8, 2009

Table of Contents

Angocoellum Mirrored Sighting Device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Intro: Angocoellum Mirrored Sighting Device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Step 1: Background and Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Step 2: Design and Drafting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Step 3: Cutting out the Pieces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Step 4: Preliminary Assembly and Measurements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Step 5: Secondary Assembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Step 6: Lining it all up! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Step 7: Embellishments and Finishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Related Instructables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

http://www.instructables.com/id/Angocoellum-Mirrored-Sighting-Device/
 Author:Kaelessin
I am a recent recipient of a BS in Computer Science. Currently working for a worldwide environmental company as an Applications Developer (programming,
reporting, etc.) but working towards a financial place where I can launch into my true calling: writing. I hope to either span or join several genres: Steampunk,
political satire, adventure, and science fiction (not the lasers and starships, but the dystopian worlds like that of Orwell).

My interests are varied but usually range from steampunk to spud guns, from ceramic and metalworking art to explosives. My hobby is hobbies.
I enjoy reading books like 1984, The Lord of the Rings, and Timeline, and listen to a wide variety of music ranging from rise against, to Tomorrow's Bad
Seeds, to Rob Dougan.

Intro: Angocoellum Mirrored Sighting Device

Very soon after finishing my previous project I realized a need for this device.

What was happening was the front (and only) sight on the rifle was a bit lower than where my head is when firing the rifle so when I looked at it there was a subtle angle
between where I was looking and where the actual barrel was pointing. At extreme short range this was not much of a problem but if I moved about 15-20 feet back (still
quite short given the range of the rifle) I would have to aim the rifle about 8 inches lower than where I wanted my projectile to hit. (In my video on the other project I shoot
at a section of palm tree with spraypaint. I hit the center with no issues but I had to point the sight at the bottom of the outside circle to hit the center)

Obviously I needed to do something about this since moving forward or backwards would affect the aim and while this is fine for archery, a rifle ought to be more
consistent.

What I decided to do was to bounce my line of sight off of two mirrors so that in the end, I had, in effect, a horizontal line from the sight to my eye instead of the angled
one.

This is all good and well but there's still the issue of looks . . .I couldn't simply slap a couple of mirrors on and call it quits so after getting the basics designed I made sure
to do a couple of things to keep with the steampunk theme.

If you like this please rate and comment! If not, please let me know what you think I ought to do differently so that I can improve in future endeavors!''

Come with me now and I will show you how I made this and how you can use it to develop your own!

Image Notes
Image Notes 1. I still need some images for this step . . .chances are I forgot to scan my plans
1. gotta love lego technic! and shoot the final product so in the mean time enjoy this rusty sheet of metal
2. make sure the teeth (or cogs or whatever you like to call them) interlock to
give the illusion of functionality
3. some old springs
4. more lego!
5. all of the new items here have been spray painted and then gilt

Step 1: Background and Theory

Before we jump right in I felt that some of you may benefit from some theory regarding mirrors since we'll be dealing so closely with them. If this is all old news to you
then just skip this step.

Everyone knows what a mirror is and how it works and indeed it's common knowledge when it comes to a single flat pane of reflective glass. . .but when working with two
mirrors and needing precision, a bit of physics will help immensely with design.

Our eyes work by receiving light and transmitting the information to our brains which interpret it. duh! The cool thing is that we can bounce this light off of certain types of
surfaces and shiny or reflective ones work the best (again duh).

With flat mirrors perpendicular to a light source, the light reacts in an intuitive way: if comes in, bounces off the reflective surface and exits all in a straight line. At an
angle, the light comes in and bounces out slightly differently, rather than exiting the way it came in it exits at an opposing angle (much like a ball bouncing on a flat court if
we had no gravity). The convenient thing is that if we draw a line perpendicular to the mirror coming out of the point of impact (sounds cooler in my opinion) we can
measure the angle between our line and the light's line. this angle is the same for the incoming and outgoing light! (see diagram). What's even better is, you can have
light coming in and exiting at an infinite number of angles and following this rule all simultaneously.

This is why we're able to perceive objects as if they reside within the mirror.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Angocoellum-Mirrored-Sighting-Device/
The last convenient property we'll take advantage of is the fact that the reduction in intensity due to passing through the glass of the mirror and the imperfections of the
reflective substrate is negligible. So we can bounce that light around as much as we want until the cows come home without worrying about dimming it.

So without further ado hop on over to the next step where we'll be using these properties to angle and place two mirrors.

*NOTE* the images for this step were lifted off of google since I lost my drawings and didn't have the heart to re-do them . . .

Image Notes
1. angle in equals angle out!
2. fancy name for a line that's perpendicular to another one(the mirror in this
case) you'll often hear orthogonal too . . . I never did understand why we have so
many terms for things!
3. INNNNCOMMMMINGGGGG!
4. Like what I said above!

Image Notes
1. mirror here
2. special concave mirror here that helps magnify . . .imagine how much bigger
this telescope would be if we did it all with lenses!
3. your geuss is as good as mine . . .im thinking it's to show magnification?
4. I love old looking drawings! Modern technical drawings are BORING let me
assure you!

Image Notes Image Notes

1. fog and lasers are always cool but this image is a great representation of the 1. the number of lasers doesn't matter! this is nice since that means we can see
law of reflection more than one beam of light exiting a mirror Notice how they all follow the law
2. draw a vertical line here and the angles are =
3. bOIIinnng! wouldn't it be cool if mirrors made sound . . .erm never mind that
would be really annoying!

http://www.instructables.com/id/Angocoellum-Mirrored-Sighting-Device/
Step 2: Design and Drafting
Okay, for this part all you need is a 2D scale drawing of the rifle (or whatever), a ruler, a triangle, a protractor(optional if you aren't that concerned) and a pencil with a
good eraser.

The first thing you'll want to do is make a couple of copies of the base drawing so that if one gets too fouled up you can scrap it and start again.

Now draw a line parallel to the barrel of the rifle at the height of the top of the sight all the way back to where you want your aiming device. This will serve as your desired
line of sight.

Draw another line parallel to the barrel but in line with where your eye is when firing the gun. This line was higher than the first one in my drawing. now we need to
bounce these two lines using mirrors so that they connect perfectly.

I started with the lower one and worked back to my eye. If you don't mind having a vertical sight device then your job is easy. Draw 2 mirrors(short lines) at 45 degree
angles and you're done. If you're like me and nature and you abhor right angles then it will be a bit trickier though certainly not impossible.

In this case, draw your brackets first and then connect the lines of sight along the axis of the bracket. now using the law of reflection draw lines representing your mirrors
so that the line of sight is reflected properly. The trick is to get mirrors the right size and height so that we get a decent square picture. My designs are included below. If
you'd like you can also jot down some ideas for embellishments but it may be best to do those later . . .you know, AFTER, we get this thing working! No matter how good
you are at drawing you'll need some adjustments to make it ideal. The point of doing this step is to make the requirement of those adjustments minimal and doable simply
by rotating the mirrors or the bracket.

Image Notes
1. I still need some images for this step . . .chances are I forgot to scan my plans and shoot the final product so in the mean time enjoy this rusty sheet of metal

Step 3: Cutting out the Pieces

Okay so in my design I need:

Two mirrors
Two flat metal brackets
Three threaded rods
12 flat washers
Six wing nuts

We need to cut 3 of the above parts to the right dimensions: the brackets, the rods, and the mirrors

Materials:

Mirrored glass (I bought this at a craft store but if you want fancy mirrors visit a glass store)
Flat sheet metal (I used the outer casing of the cdrom drive I took apart for the last project)
1ft of brass threaded rod (I used 6-32 from Ace Hardware)

Tools:

Jeweler's Saw (or any other saw with a very fine blade)
Glass cutter
Bench Grinder
Ruler
Permanent Marker (I used sharpie since they're alcohol soluble)
Tin snips
Calipers
Anvil(or heavy duty hunk of metal)
Hammer the heavier the better . . .a 1 pounder is pretty nice
Drill (either press or hand)

Cutting Mirror
I wanted my mirrors to be able to swivel within the brackets(which is immensely useful by the way) so I cut my mirror into squares the same width as my rifle at the point
where they will attach. The reasons for this will be explained later.

Use the calipers to get an accurate measurement of your rifle's thickness and use the ruler to draw squares onto the mirror with your marker. A super fine tipped marker
is essential.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Angocoellum-Mirrored-Sighting-Device/
Now lay the glass on a smooth flat surface and place the ruler along the line so that when the glass cutter is used the "blade" is directly on your line. Grab the cutter and
press it onto the glass firmly but not extremely hard and run it along the ruler. This will make a faint crunching/grinding sound as it scores the glass along the line. What
we're doing here is setting ourselves up for a very controlled break. Mirror is especially finicky so make sure you get a proper score. Now would be a good time to wear
some gloves and safety glasses are not optional here. The cutter has rectangular sections cut out of the backside (sort of like a medieval sword breaker).
Insert the glass into one and then carefully flex the glass until it breaks. Let the tool do all of the work since any extra stresses will make the glass break in a way that you
don't want.
Score along your other lines and repeat.

If you're unwilling to go through the trouble of cutting your glass that's fine but make sure you buy mirror that's exactly the right size.

Now go to your bench grinder (now gloves are also required) and carefully round out the corners and smooth any unevenness away. There's a serious risk of breakage
here so you could skip this step but I'd recommend it as it makes the mirrors look much better. Obviously you'll want a fine stone not a coarse one.
Clean off your glass and set it aside.

Cutting the brackets

Now take your sheet metal (or cd-rom casing as it were) and draw rectangles onto it. I split mine up into 4 long rectangles and decided they were too wide so I used one
of them cut in two.

Whip out the tin snips and gloves and cut along your lines. The snips will bend your sheet a bit but that can be fixed easily. Avoid closing the snips completely as you'll
get funny little twists along your cut every so often. Be extra careful here since your cuts will result in sharp edges. Make them way longer than you need since you can
always cut them down later!

Draw a rounded (or whatever you'd like) bottom and put a dot for where we'll drill the first hole later. Next pound the brackets flat using an anvil and a hammer. Don't
aimlessly whail on it though . . . just hit it hard enough to make it flat. If your hammer has been used a lot (like mine has) it will have a very uneven face. This is great as
each time you hit the bracket, designs are left behind imprinted into the metal!

Now that they're flat stack your brackets together and clamp them. Go over to the grinder again with your glasses and grind the shape into the bottom of the brackets and
make them even and the same size.

Keeping them clamped, take a bolt or a nail set and hold it over the dot you made earlier and whack it once with the hammer. This creates a little divot so the hole may be
drilled without worrying about slipping. Get a bit slightly larger than your rod and drill the hole through both brackets using a drill press(recommended) or a hand drill in
either case, use a piece of scrap wood to back them up so they don't flex in the process.

Drilling through thin sheet will leave burrs behind. use a screw driver in the holes to press the burrs outward away from the hole and then give the bracket a good whack
to flatten the burrs outside the hole. Grind the sharp edges away and your brackets are ready for initial placement and measuring.

Cutting the Threaded Rod

Take your threaded rod and mark it with sharpie in intervals at least 1/2 an inch bigger than the width of your gun and mirror. Take the jeweler's saw and carefully cut the
sections . . . If you copy my design you'll need three rods. The jeweler's saw is needed since a larger saw will mar the threads and make it impossible or at least very
difficult to thread the nuts on later. Work slowly and let the weight of the saw do all the work . . .if you press on the saw that tiny blade will just snap under the pressure
and we wouldn't want that to happen . . .insane saw blades are not funny business since they don't have asylums for them.

Good job! now all the cutting is done!

Image Notes Image Notes

1. fine point for drawing narrow lines 1. carefully align the ruler
2. glass cutter 2. the cut . . .notice the rectangular sections . . .these help with the break.
3. seven eight lay em straight 3. press firmly but don't crush the glass
4. 3inch squares from the craft store to be cut down to 1.75 inch squares 4. oft used!
5. various views and designs laid out for my reference 5. clap your hands or tink will die!
6. thick rubber mat protects my precious tablet from damage . . .being slightly
squishy though I decided to move the operation elsewhere

http://www.instructables.com/id/Angocoellum-Mirrored-Sighting-Device/
 Image Notes Image Notes
1. gloves and the shield for the grinder are not shown in picture due to the 1. mirror 1 all cut, ground and ready!
requirements of photography (namely clarity and dexterity) 2. mirror 2 all cut, ground and ready!
2. nice round edge to come 3. this is the top of an old cd drive divided into 4 mostly equal rectangles . . .I
3. yuck . . .glass is easy . . .mirrored glass is a real pain in the neck decided that they were too wide so I used only one and cut it in half . . .still have
4. not a coarse wheel 3/4 of the sheet for other projects!
5. make sure to rest your work on this ledge to keep it from bouncing around or
being stolen by the grinder

Image Notes Image Notes

1. tin snips . . . teh awesom3 1. again gloves and guard not shown to make the photo easier (notice how I'm
2. twisted metal that came off of the edges . . .not useful for this project but you not actually grinding!) make sure you wear gloves, use the guard, and wear
never know for another glasses too
3. rough lines . . .I didn't actially follow these since they're more for a remider of 2. not quite round yet but getting there
orientation than anything else
4. ugly twist left by closing the snips all the way . . .

http://www.instructables.com/id/Angocoellum-Mirrored-Sighting-Device/
 Image Notes Image Notes
1. cut off in printing but I didn't use this particular one so it's all good 1. my brother's jeweler's saw . . .never thought it'd come in handy for me but it
2. mark the rod in increments did!
3. I draw on my rulers all the time to make measuring consistent . . .works for 2. THIN blade fits between threads
me but if you're not lazy then just measure twice cut once. 3. no pressing down . . .you'll break a blade Just let the saw's weight do the
work.
4. place other hand here when not using camera . . .don't clamp the rod since
you'll squish the threads and render it useless.
5. bonsai wire! awesome stuff . . .shapes trees and is nice and soft (must be
annealed) so it's handy for little projects too!
6. so many knobs and adjustments . . .almost steampunk in and of itself!

Image Notes Image Notes

1. I decided not to use the hex nuts. . . . 1. I made an extra just in case
2. for a while I considered adding a scope too . . .might still . . .what do you all 2. different scope ideas . . .placements etc . . .
think? (yes both of you :P) 3. X translates to yuck I hate this design
3. here's the order again . . . wing nut, washer, bracket, washer, rifle, washer,
bracket, washer, wing nut

Step 4: Preliminary Assembly and Measurements

Tools:

Drill
Grinder
Sandpaper (80 grit)

Take the drill bit you used before and drill a hole in your rifle's stock where you'd like the brackets to go. Put a rod through the hole and put washers on either end. Put the
brackets on the rod and then another washer. Swing the brackets up to the position you want and tighten the wing nuts to hold them steady.

Grab your mirrors and place them between the brackets at the angels you calculated and put dots on the brackets below the lower mirror and above the upper mirror
making sure the mirrors will not interfere with each other. To hold the mirrors steady while you do this, simply squeeze the brackets together a little bit and they'll hold the
mirror just fine.

Now that you've done everything up, take it all apart again! now you know 3 new things, first you know where the lower mirror's hole goes, second where the upper
mirror's hole goes, and third how tall the brackets actually need to be. I decided to leave mine a bit long and do some fancy stuff with the ends.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Angocoellum-Mirrored-Sighting-Device/
Go and drill the new holes (again clamping the brackets together to make sure they line up and backig it with scrap wood) and grind in any fancy shapes that you want.
Take some sand paper (I used 80 for this part) and make sure all burrs are gone and that you can't cut yourself on the brackets. Avoid sanding the faces too much or
you'll get rid of the designs left by the hammer.

Image Notes Image Notes

1. Drill a hole . . .make sure it's perpendicular to the stock . . . 1. screwed in place and ready for measurements
2. heh free ethan allen recliners make excellent reading chairs, movie seats and 2. heh still have to fix that tubing . . .ghastly coloring on it!
now image backgrounds . . .probably should have moved the socks!
3. I was too lazy to set up the press but I'm good at getting proper angle on the
drill . . .recommendation: use the press

Image Notes Image Notes

1. I didn't have three hands so I pretended I knew where to put the dot then 1. whew all the holes are drilled but DANG those are some ugly brackets! If you
measured properly later . . . view the image full size you can see where I peaned(sp?) the burrs over . . .just
2. also make sure the dot's in the center click the "i" in the corner

http://www.instructables.com/id/Angocoellum-Mirrored-Sighting-Device/
 Image Notes
1. cut to size and fancified!
2. cool patterns left by hammer!
3. more cool hammer patterns
4. burrs peaned over (anyone know how to spell that word?)
5. this was too boring for me so I deliberately added some with the hammer
later

Step 5: Secondary Assembly

Tools and Materials

A sharp knife
2 part plumber's Epoxy Putty

Open up the putty and slice off a thinish section and mix it together . . .this will leave your hands sticky so either wear gloves or have some lava soap handy. Once you
have a uniform color, wrap it around the center of one of the rods. Making sure you are centered both horizontally and vertically squish the rod onto the back of one of the
mirrors and then squish the putty down around the rod. Repeat this for the other mirror. Be careful not to touch the faces of the mirrors or you'll have a hard time seeing
through them. Wash your hands off and let the putty cure . . .should only take a couple of minutes. Now put washers on either side of each mirror and place them in the
brackets. Put washers on the mirrors' rods outside the brackets and thread the wing nuts into place but don't tighten them yet.

Place a wing nut and washer on the last rod and put it through the bottom hole of one bracket. Place another washer over the bottom hole on the inside of one bracket
and thread the rod through it. Align this with the hole in the stock of the rifle and thread the rod up through the rifle. place one more washer on the rod and then thread it
through the other bracket. Add the last washer and wing nut.
If * is a wing nut, | is a washer, 1 is the bracket, and S is your stock it will look like this:

*|1|S|1|*

In other words, each component in this entire assembly has a washer on either side of it with the exception of the wing nuts. The reason for this is twofold. This gives us a
bit of spacing which makes it possible to swivel the mirrors or the brackets independently without loosening the entire bracket assembly and it protects the holes driven in
the wood from damage and keeps them out of sight (okay so that's technically more than two . . .sue me).

Image Notes Image Notes

1. this putty gets your fingers rather sticky so there's a lack of pics between here 1. all assembled but not installed yet . . .orientation of the mirrors isn't crucial
and full assembly since I didn't want to put sticky fingers on one of the smallest at this point since they can be pivoted!
200 bucks I own . . .apologies
2. this is a little bit too much but that's ok . . .the blue and light blue are 2
http://www.instructables.com/id/Angocoellum-Mirrored-Sighting-Device/
 compounds that when mixed turn into rock hard water tight cement! I love this
stuff for that reason . . .I've fixed a lot of my ceramic sculptures with it since it's got
a similar surface to smooth fired clay and will take paint very well!
3. use a sharp thin knife but clean it immediately or you'll never get the gunk off
4. replace the little card circle and seal up the tube after you're done

Image Notes
1. this is what the back looks like after the rod's epoxied on. I will fix the ugly in a
later step
2. all assembled and installed! let's see if it works like we expected

Step 6: Lining it all up!

Great! now you're done! . . .well . . ..sort of.

We now need to line everything up so that your sights work!

Tools:

a laser pointer or bore sight

a stable surface

Place your rifle on a stable surface and clamp it down or find some other way of holding it steady. Turn the laser on and insert it into your barrel. If we ignore gravity then
the laser will point where the bullet will go. Now look through the top mirror and adjust the brackets and mirrors until you can see your front sight clearly and nothing else
(ie if your mirrors are not aligned properly you'll see other things reflected in the top mirror than the bottom one and this is generally undesirable).

Now tweak the mirror assembly until the laser beam rests just above the sight. Angles are important so hold your head where it will be when shooting!

If the beam lies off to the right or left, then the brackets aren't aligned. . .simply push one forward and pull the other back to align them.

Once everything is good then you can either use it as is or continue on and embellish the assembly to make it look really nice.

Image Notes
1. I love Deviant Art . . . .inexpensive prints of awesome art from people that haven't gotten too big for their boots yet!
2. of course I couldn't resist my own embellishments . . .but I digress . . .back to the sighting . . .and here we see a duck. The duck is an aquatic bird . . .*cough*
wrong type of sighting . . .
http://www.instructables.com/id/Angocoellum-Mirrored-Sighting-Device/
 3. actual sight
4. percieved sight!
5. also some ugly that I will fix later . . .in this case its function before form
6. these don't quite line up horizontally so we twist the brackets to make it line up.
7. it takes a bit of fiddling but you'll get it eventually!
8. next I'll find a long hallway and put a laser down the barrel to make sure the vertical alignment is right.

Step 7: Embellishments and Finishing

Okay so now you've got the bare functional skelleton and it works . . .but looks awful (or at least not as good as it could)

Tools and materials:

your intuition and imagination

Junk: namely gears, circuitboards, wires, tubes, pipes, anything that's been cast aside but looks cool
paint
rub n buff or other gilding solution
220 grit sandpaper
metal polish
some rags and paintbrushes would come in handy too

Basically this step is an invitation to run wild with it! grab some gears and hoses and paint and gilding and go nuts! For those less imaginative I'll go ahead and describe
what I have done.

First, (I know you're going to kill me . . .) take it all apart again! Grab some 220 grit sand paper and sand the metal to get rid of any paint and whatnot. The hammer blows
most likely have left little raised areas and indentations. The 220 is too fine to take these out so what it does is shines up the raised areas and leaves dust and grime in
the lower ones which makes for a great design. If you don't like this then whip out the 80 grit and sand it smooth keeping the same direction all the time and if you want
the brushed look to be less pronounced, work your way up to about 150-180. Get your polish and a rag and polish the metal but leave it a bit unfinished . . .mirror finishes
won't work as well visually. If you left the hammer marks then these will take on a shiny appearance and the other spots will get grimier which is great for making it look
aged. If you sanded smooth then the polish will still work but will give you more of a brushed look unless you went too fine with the paper.

I epoxied some circuitry to the backs of the mirrors and then rolled little coils of epoxy putty to embellish the faces of the mirrors. I gave many of the parts a quick flat
black undercoat and then re assembled everything and realigned it. now I glued little bits and pieces everywhere to really steampunk it out and tie it into the rifle. Notice
the "tubes" going from the mirror device to my "optically driven trajectory rectification apparatus" (see other ible for explanation). All that's left is to use a bit of that gilding
stuff to give the black primed spots a bit of brassy goodness!

Image Notes Image Notes

1. gotta love lego technic! 1. another angle
2. make sure the teeth (or cogs or whatever you like to call them) interlock to 2. This seems too disjoint so I might put some sort of belt or something here . .
give the illusion of functionality .maybe a makeshift piston?
3. some old springs
4. more lego!
5. all of the new items here have been spray painted and then gilt

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 Image Notes
1. old computer circuitry pre paint stage of course
2. more putty to adhere the part
3. icky colors that desperately need paint!
4. paint wash would help this here
5. extra gears added for looks
6. noticing some touchups are in order!

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Comments
23 comments Add Comment

badideasrus says: Feb 11, 2011. 12:27 PM REPLY

i love it. very functional. however i spy a problem. unless you mark one of the mirrors, probably the bottom one for looks, you will be able to twist the point of
aim all over those mirrors. say if you pointed your gun just a little to the left or right, your sight will still show up, but it won't be centered, and will shoot off.
same is for up and down. what i would do is take the bottom mirror and paint a black ~v~ (like an rear iron sight) shape at the height of the front sight. this
way, you can line up the horizontal and vertical axises. (if you plan to do this, when finding the height to paint, take into acount the angle of the mirror. see
picture.)

a more adventerous (and somewhat unrelated) idea is to mount the bottom mirror on an adjustable frame, so that you could turn a screw and lift the mirror
higher. this would give you elevation control, and allow you to aim further.

Kaelessin says: Feb 19, 2011. 11:22 AM REPLY

Excellent idea! so far i've been making sure the barrel is aligned with the sight but that's iffy at best. Definitely will make that mod!

jason the red says: Jun 19, 2010. 8:24 PM REPLY

id totally use this... if i wasn't making a minigun accuracy's not that important when youre spraying a wave of metal..

http://www.instructables.com/id/Angocoellum-Mirrored-Sighting-Device/
 naruto the ninja13 says: Apr 18, 2010. 7:21 PM REPLY
does this really work?

Kaelessin says: Apr 28, 2010. 11:49 PM REPLY

yes this is fully functional

urbanprimate says: Sep 15, 2009. 5:47 PM REPLY

Once again, an awesome build! I never would've thought to make a periscope for a rifle. Kudos on a novel and artistic solution.

Kaelessin says: Sep 16, 2009. 12:34 AM REPLY

thanks man!

Articas says: Apr 28, 2009. 1:16 AM REPLY

i wouldn't use it .. i cherish my lego to much (it my only outlet of crativity ...and anger)

Kazeem says: Apr 19, 2009. 1:10 PM REPLY

Ingenious use of lego... And i have so much of that kind of lego technic. I'm going to have to get spray-painting my lego :P

Kaelessin says: Apr 19, 2009. 3:28 PM REPLY

heh glad to be an inspiration

Articas says: Apr 10, 2009. 6:17 AM REPLY

OMFG you Used lego in it Who da thunk it

Kaelessin says: Apr 10, 2009. 7:37 AM REPLY

lol yup! those gears fit together really well so I figured I'd repurpose them

bounty1012 says: Feb 7, 2009. 4:38 PM REPLY

Very nice we need some more steampunk things on instructables.

Kaelessin says: Feb 7, 2009. 7:02 PM REPLY

thanks!! yes we definitely need more

Mattrox says: Feb 5, 2009. 1:35 AM REPLY

Your skill amazes me.

Kaelessin says: Feb 5, 2009. 6:15 AM REPLY

well my hobby is ceramics which requires a lot of working with my hands so they get lotsa practice. XD thanks!

Fenris The bbw says: Jan 18, 2009. 9:18 PM REPLY

It needs a fake axel or something.

Kaelessin says: Jan 18, 2009. 10:07 PM REPLY

thanks for the comment . . .where do you think would be good?

Fenris The bbw says: Jan 19, 2009. 10:05 PM REPLY

The gears don't seem to actually be connected to the mirror in any meaningful way. I think the gears should extend onto the axel the mirror pivots on.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Angocoellum-Mirrored-Sighting-Device/
 Kaelessin says: Jan 19, 2009. 10:14 PM REPLY
good point! I'll see what I've got lying around

shooby says: Jan 11, 2009. 5:34 PM REPLY

uh yeah...excellent use of lego here. Paint is convincing

Kaelessin says: Jan 11, 2009. 10:15 PM REPLY

thanks! the black base coat and a light touch of rub n buff makes the paint easy!

gmjhowe says: Jan 10, 2009. 1:48 AM REPLY

Keep it coming! great mod to your project. Im looking forward to your next one.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Angocoellum-Mirrored-Sighting-Device/