At 05:58 PM 5/23/2002 -0700, you wrote:
I'll be teaching a pinhole class, constructing cameras from Quaker oatmeal
canisters. I'd like to avoid using knives to cut the opening for the pinhole.
How about a punch? If you were to insert a piece of soft wood (like a 2x4
clamped to the edge of a table) into the oatmeal box for a mandrel, you
could smack a short piece of brass tubing (or anything else you could find
lying around) with a hammer and punch out a pretty good circular
hole--especially if you filed the edges of the tube to make it slightly
sharp (but not skin-cutting sharp).
Another possibility would be to use a circle template, a mandrel like
above, and a ball-point pen. Use the template to draw a circle on the
cannister in the desired spot, and then keep going around and around using
the template as a guide, bearing down hard with the pen...soon enough
you'll come through the other side. A little time consuming, but pretty
safe--I'm not sure you couldn't do as much damage with a Dremel as with a
knife!
Cheers,
Chad
