Galaxy in Your Hand! Infinity Mirror Stars 2.0

In this tutorial I tried to make an upgrade on something i made a year ago. A small shape that fits in your hand and if you look into it, you can see a galaxy of stars infinite reflected :-)

Step 1: Improving This Early Model of an Infinity Galaxy Mirror

This is my first galaxy mirror made of 3mm acrylic mirror elements. It's kinda nice but I didn't liked the edges because you can see the edges of the acrylic very well, This is caused by the fact that the mirrored layer is underneath the acrylic sheet. In orde to make nicer edges I only saw an option to try this with first service mirrors who have the mirror layer on top of glass. Other option was well polished stainless steel but those two options cost quite some money for this project. After a lot of searching I found some very interesting sheet material. Its plastic sheet with a mirror film on top of it and looks like the perfect match for this! Let's go!

Step 2: Cut the Mirror Sheet and Let's Get Started!

Not only the material is changed. I also tried a different shape with more faces. Also the holes for light should be a little bit smaller. To build this Icosahedron shape, you need 20 triangles. Thats 8 faces more than the first model.

Here you can find the material used: https://www.kunststofshop.nl/polystyreen-plaat/spi...

File for the triangles is in A4 format. Print them out, cut, trace onto the sheets and start cutting out the 20 triangles with trimmed edges.

It's possible to cut the sheets into the necessary triangles by hand using a sharp knife or use something faster like a lasercutter :P. You will need 20 triangles and 5 of them have a slightly bigger trim on one side. Start with taping these 5 triangles together with the bigger trimmed side together so you will get a bigger hole to look trough later on.

Option: use a paper model to support a little bit while taping the parts down.
Template file of the paper icosahedron included US Letter format

Step 3: Proceed With 10 Regular Triangles

Use 10 regular triangles to build around the shape you made earlier. The reflections are already becoming very interesting in this stage! :-) You can support the triangles from the inside in order to tape them down but make sure you use a piece of fabric to prevent finger prints on the mirrored sides.

Step 4: Only 5 More Triangles to Go!

Complete your infinite galaxy mirror with the last 5 triangles. the last one is the trickiest because in this stage you can't support from the inside anymore. Fiddle around and you are done! Now lets take a look inside :-)

Step 5: First Look!

Due to the smaller holes, there is more contrast in the shape and more tiny spots of light now. Still wondering how it would look with some lights mounted into it so lets try that as well :-)

Step 6: Add Lights to Make It Even More a Galaxy! :-)

By luck I had this tiny led string laying around so had to try it on the shape. The distance between the leds turns out to be perfect for the job :-) I taped them onto the shape and very happy with this upgrade :-) here you can find the led led string: https://kikkerland.com/products/copper-string-battery-lights