I just made myself a little pinhole monacle out of a copper pipe.
Basically you put the large hole to your eye and look at stuff through the small hole. It's surprisingly effective, while my left eye is quite short sighted I can read 2 inch high lettering at about 7 metres using this. It lets you focus on things fairly well at any distance, however it is limited by the fact that the small aperture only lets in a small amount of light, so it doesn't work well in dim light.
I got the idea when my friend forgot his glasses the other day which prevented him from taking notes in a lecture, so I kerjiggered a monacle together out of a piece of paper. I thought I might try making a more permanent one.
I sanded it a bit to shine it up, although unfortunately there are marks on one end from the vice.
I also haven't got round to making a remote ignition system for the pulse-jet engine from my last journal, as I have yet to get some long enough wires. Maybe in the next few weeks I will.
That meaning, the smaller the hole, the better the focus will be.
and ya, it's hard to vice copper pipe without denting/maring it.. it's so dam soft. still looks pretty clean to me tho
And I was afraid of the pipe moving CT, so I made a little rig so that it could be clamped firmly without crushing, and so that only about 5-10mm had to be gripped as it also stopped it from pivoting. By the time I figured out how to do the unsanded bit I had also came up with a rig that let me grip it in a similar way, firmly, with a cloth in between the vice and the pipe. So the whole thing is sanded but one end has marks from the vice that are too deep to easily sand out.