1.01| Prepare your workspace. You will need:

• thick cardboard or other strong protective material to cover your work surface
• craft paper
• small electric saw or drill with saw attachment if possible. If not, use a sharp paper cutter
• vinyl adhesive
• ruler or T-square
• removable sticky tape
• pencil
• sandpaper
  

1.02| If you are using a paper cutter be very careful and cut slowly, a little at a time. If you have one, use your small electric saw or saw attachment. In either case, cut across the tube on the thick line to the left-hand side of the printed letters, so that you make 8 open rings. If the tube moves about, use some sticky tape to fix it to the work surface or ask someone to help you.

1.03| You now have 8 cylinders (the open rings) plus the two ends of the tube. Keep the ends because you will need them to make a pen & pencil holder.

1.04| To give the cylinders a better finish, run your paper cutter around the edges to smooth them.

1.05| Alternatively, use the sandpaper to smooth the edges.

1.06| Apply a thin layer of vinyl adhesive to the edges of the cylinders. Do this step by step with instruction 1.07.

1.07| Run your finger and thumb gently around the glued edges to "laminate" the inner rims (see photo). Wait for the adhesive to dry before carry out the next step.

1.08| To make your cryptex, choose whether you want it to have 8 or 5 cylinders. For eight cylinders, cut a sheet of craft paper to 18,6 x 36 cm (7.32 x 14.2 in). For five cylinders cut the paper to 18,5 x 20 cm (7.28 x 36.07 in). Roll the sheet of paper lengthwise in the same size of the cylinders. Take the two stoppers from the ends of the original tube that held the poster and have them ready on your work surface. If you prefer to make a pen & pencil holder, go to section 2.00.

1.09| Slide 6 (3) of your 8 (5) cylinders onto the paper tube you just made. Make sure you keep all the letters facing in one direction. Allow the paper tube to protrude by the same amount at each end.

1.10| Apply a thin layer of adhesive to the outside of each protruding end of the paper tube.

1.11| Slide on the two remaining cylinders.

1.12| Glue one stopper onto each end of the paper tube. Now try to turn each of the cylinders that make up the cryptex. If you followed all the instructions correctly they should move easily. Now you can rotate them to make an endless series of coded letter combinations. In the photo below we have chosen "Leonardo" as our code.

2.00| Make a pen & pencil holder

If you like, you can use some of the original poster tube as an easy-to-make pen & pencil holder. Just stick together the pieces you haven't used for the cryptex!