Mirrors

Large sheets of mirror glass is available in most towns, and scrap is usually available for sale. Glass vendors generally have the tools to make small squares of mirror glass and you can super glue these to small wooden blocks so they stand upright. These will also work for the hand mirrors sometimes required in biology.

Glass Blocks (for optics experiments)

Glass blocks from a lab supply company are generally 15 mm thick rectangular pieces of glass with beveled edges, so students do not cut themselves. They can be expensive, especially if you need many. Fortunately, it is possible to buy your own glass and find a craftsman to make blocks for you, especially if you insist on the importance of clean, parallel cuts. 8 mm glass is relatively common in towns and 10 mm glass can be found in industrial areas of the most major cities. 12 mm and thicker glass exists though is even more difficult to find. However, for most optics practicals, several pieces of thinner glass can simply be stacked together and turned on their edge. This is a powerful way of showing refraction, and the necessary material (ordinary glass) is cheap and widely available.

Optical Pins

Ordinary pins are cheap and perfectly effective. To make them easier to see, buy some brightly colored nail polish and paint the head. If you happen to purchase many plastic syringes, the needles make excellent optical pins. Pinch a point in the shaft with pliers so no one can take the needle and use it for injecting anything.

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