Pepper’s Ghost
A few weeks back my 3 year old daughter gained a “Sooty” magic wand on the front of a magazine and has been trying to make things appear and disappear ever since. To help her “magic things” I was thinking about self working tricks. Initially I thought about some high tech solutions such as something that would respond to 3 taps of the wand in a similar manner to this secret knock detector.
However, I then remembered the old “Pepper’s Ghost” trick which is an optical illusion which can make people appear and disappear simply by changing the lights. I borrowed some ideas Übernotes from to build one.
We created the effect by painting the inside of an old teabox with black poster paint. When it was dry a door was cut in the front and a flap in the top. we also added part of a fahita box for a roof.
After a quick trip down the workshop to cut a piece of perspex, we added that in with some whitetack. Finally a figure was added on the right of the box.
All that was left was to shine a torch through the hole in the top. Here’s the effect in action.





Metal sculpture in brass, mounted on an 1800s French Coin





tried to view this but it says invalid parameters:(
Maybe the direct link would work better. Youtube Pepper’s Ghost in a teabox