Kaleidoscope Wheels By Kaleidoscope Artist, Janice Chesnik of Chesnik Scopes.

Janice Chesnik has been making kaleidoscopes and wheels for her kaleidoscopes for over 22 years now and is recognized as a leader in her field. She has won many awards for her kaleidoscopes.

Interchangeable wheels. Each wheel is handcrafted of various pieces of hand cut stained glass and assembled using age-old stained glass techniques. Each wheel is then brass or chrome plated to match the finish of the barrel of the kaleidoscope.

There are 2 Dichroic wheels - a primary wheel and a secondary wheel. Dichroic glass is a specially formed glass that will actually pickup different colors changing under different background colors and different lighting conditions. Dichroic glass is made by adding materials to the glass that is suspended on the ceiling of a specially made vacuume machine. A sheet of Dichroic glass can cost up to $144.00 a square foot, due to its unique hand crafted manufacturing process.

Primary Dichroic Wheel is made of textured dichroic glass.

Secondary Dichroic Wheel is made of flat dichroic glass.

Agate Wheel is made from slices of natural, Brazilian agates that are soldered in the technique of stained glass.

Fiesta Wheel is a very special wheel and makes Chesnik kaleidoscopes very distinctive. Each cane pattern is individually made in the age old Venetian tradition of millefiore, bundling different colors of glass rods, heating these up to 1200 degrees and pulling the rods to a desired diameter then the rod is sliced and each piece fire polished.