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Mechanical Image Duplicator By Cy Tymony

Before Chester Carlson invented photocopying, inventors engineered various mechanical devices to replicate images. With a few everyday items found in the home, you can make a pantograph, an image duplicator that allows you to use one pencil to trace an image while another pencil follows its path in parallel to produce a near-identical copy.

YOU WILL NEED

Thick white cardboard
Pencils ( 2)
Paper
Paper clips ( 4)
Paper clip boxes ( 2)

AA battery or other small weight

Marking pen Transparent tape Scissors

1. Cut out and position cardboard strips. You’ll need 4 cardboard strips. Cut 2 strips measuring 2"× 4" and another pair 2"× 8", as shown in Figure 1. Place the 2 pairs of strips at right angles to each other, with the smaller pair lying on top of the larger pair.

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2. Link cardboard strips with paper clips. Cut 4 holes in the strips and slip 3 paper clips into them, as shown in Figure 2. Bend up the end of another paper clip, as shown, and tape it to the top of a paper clip box.

3. Add pencils and secure to table.

Cut 2 holes in the image duplicator strips large enough for 2 pencils to fit snugly and stand erect, as shown in Figure 3. Turn the cardboard strips over and slip the hole at the end of the left-hand strip over the paper clip that’s taped to the top of the paper clip box.

Place a second paper clip box under the image duplicator where the 2 large strips meet, to keep it level. To ensure that the drawing pencil (B) presses against the paper properly, you can add weight to the cardboard strip by taping a AA battery underneath it.

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Use It.

Place the original image under pencil A, and a blank sheet of paper under pencil B. Trace the original design with pencil A. Pencil B will follow along, drawing the image on the paper.

Experiment with different lengths of strips to make larger and smaller copies of the original design.

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Cy Tymony is the author of the Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things book series. He lives in Los Angeles. sneakyuses.com

Illustrations by Alison Kendall

136 Make: Volume 17