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every machine is a smoke machine if you use it wrong enough

fastest thornton-pickard in the west

2024-01-20

Or, well, the fastest Thornton-Pickard “Time&Instantanious” in any case.

Natively, that one has shutter speeds from 1/15s to 1/80s. It’s a very simple curtain shutter – the width of the gap is not adjustable, only the spring tension.

I made a new curtain for it. I made it out of a pretty thin IKEA blackout curtain – they are not all 100% light tight, but this one is. I don’t know if it would fit more modern shutters with their considerably tighter tolerances, but for this one it’s pretty ideal.

original curtain on the right, my new one on the left (the reverse side of the new curtain is rubberized black, just this side is blue)

I made the gap a fourth of the original size, so nominally that should be a top speed of 1/320s. I measured it and it’s more like 1/150s but that’s alright – it’s possible it could go faster than that but I don’t want to over-wind the spring in it either.