One quiet afternoon, Bluey came out of his room with an Etch-a-Sketch.
“Can we take this apart and see how it works? Maybe we can fix it?”
Since the toy was already mostly non-functional, it seemed like a fun adventure.
All we had to go on was the knowledge that there was some sort of powder inside, and some sort of controls that scratched the powder off the glass. We didn’t know much more.
Tip: We did a quick google search to confirm that the powder was non-toxic and harmless. So no worries there! But we wore safety goggles as a precaution.
There are no discernible screws or other points of entry into the Etch-a-Sketch. Apparently, the folks at Ohio Arts don’t encourage this sort of activity. Undeterred, we brought out a flat headed screwdriver, and ultimately a chisel, to split the connection between the red front, and the black back of the device.
Inside, and spilling onto our arts and crafts table, we found a super-fine aluminum powder, and the clever string and pulley system that controls the stylus.
Tip2: Be prepared for a huge mess, if you take this on. The powder gets everywhere, coating surfaces like paint. But it all cleans up relatively easily, so don’t be discouraged.
Seeing how the Etch-A-Sketch works was a lot of fun, and well worth the effort. We’d wondered for years what was inside, and had to satisfy ourselves with a vague: “some sort of powder or sand.” Now we know what the powder is and how the mechanism functions. We weren’t able to fix the toy, but we had lot of fun figuring out how it works!