Not so hard. Start with a larger size on the back. and finish with the small and the working thickness will be less than the material.
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Thank you for taking the time to really share the details on this. Amazing to me.
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Hmmm… I don’t think those bits are not gonna cut it. The smallest diameter drill is about .5mm. My requirements are much more narrow, in the range of .3mm to .15mm. The standard “craft” procedure is to take a needle and create a dimple in metal - usually sheet brass. You don’t even attempt puncturing the material. You then sand the other side down until you expose a hole. You can measure the size if the hole by scanning it at a set dpi and then count the pixels to get the hole diameter. If it is too small, then keep sanding and repeat until you get the target size. That’s a bit much for me. I suppose I do things in my builds that are even more of a hassle than that, but even if I went through that whole process and managed to get the diameter within tolerances, I would will be hard pressed to get the material as thin as the ones I get from my vendor. I’m sure he can actually do custom sizes. He just doesn’t want to 
. I did find an outfit in Sweden that claims to make .18mm pinholes but they had a sketchy payment system so I didn’t go through with it. Edmund Scientific makes pinholes of varying sizes but they’re super expensive. Like, I might as well buy a lens kinda expensive. Different application, I think. I think eventually I’ll dip my hand into making precision pinholes but for now I’d rather focus on the camera bodies.
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As always, a deep and fascinating dive into your obsession. Wonderful! And for your efforts to yield both a beautiful object and a functional tool is rewarding on another level.
This is such a key element of the cycle; tactile feedback somehow heightens problem solving ability.
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This is truly astounding…and so far over my head. I am absolutely in awe.
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It seems my Forge efforts are underwhelming, heh heh.
Amazing write up. Thanks for sharing your talent.
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Those are the ones everyone can learn the most from. 
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Wow. Amazing.
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Okay, I’ll keep a log!
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Wholeheartedly agree! Reading about about a problem, or theorizing about a potential issue, is one thing but constant iteration, though perhaps painstaking, is the quickest way to evolve.
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I just ran across this write up of a gingerbread camera and immediately thought of the pinhole! I bet a gingerbread pinhole would totally work 
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Wow, @deirdrebeth! Now I’ve seen everything! Yes, I’m sure it works just fine. There’s no limit on what you can make a pinhole camera out of, as long as it is lightproof. I recently saw a charming pinhole camera made from a can of Spam. That’s part of the what makes pinhole-ing so much fun. I’m boring, so I just use plywood
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What you created is so far from boring! I read your post 8 months ago and it was the first thing I thought of when I saw the gingerbread. You made mechanics from wood and fire. It’s incredibly cool!
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This is freaking AMAZING. WOAH. I love love love it!
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I need to make something like this for one of the kiddos I work with. He’s ASD and obsessed with cameras! He also has a tendency to throw things when he dysregulates so this could be perfect! I bet I could even make something out of cardboard!
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I remember reading about your pinhole camera when I first got my GF, and was fascinated by it then. Even more so now. A lot of the technological stuff goes way above my head, but that’s okay. It’s because of people like you who understand all of it, that makes any camera available to those of us who lack that understanding and just want to “point and shoot.” And the photos you are able to get with a homemade camera are awesome!
Thank you for taking the time to write it all up. I loved reading about your process and seeing all the pictures of the build/changes in progress.
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I don’t know if I mentioned it before but when my parents redid their kitchen, I was able to build a two-story “fort” in the back corner of the property that stuck up above the wall. The box that contained the refrigerator was pretty lightproof so an ice-pick hole a foot or so above the wall projected on the other side quite nicely and I could watch the wide-screen real-time movie of what went on in the alleyway.
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