Bellow repair?

[Spazoid1965]

My 13.5cm Nippon Kogaku "F" Bellows has sprung a few leaks. Has anyone repaired bellows before. If so how? Does anyone make the bellow material for replacement.Currently I'm still using it. I'm just throwing a piece of black velvet material around it. But this isn't a pemanent solution.

 

[Ralph Javins]

Good morning;

Have you asked the Nikon people about this? That would be my first suggestion for a genuine replacement part.

The large format people encounter this frequently. The best company around is Custom Bellows in England. http://www.custombellows.co.uk/ They were the original equipment manufacturer for a surprisingly large number of the cameras made using this system. They seem to have on file the patterns and drawings for just about any bellows system you can imagine.

There are some others also, but Custom Bellows is the first other source that I can suggest. If this is not satisfactory, please ask again, and I will come up with a couple more that might work.

 

[phaedrus]

My 13.5cm Nippon Kogaku "F" Bellows has sprung a few leaks. Has anyone repaired bellows before. If so how?

Tape over the corners with black textile tape. Isn't great for looks but works.

 

[John Koehrer]

try diycamera kit. If nothing else he can most likely provide Pattern & material.

 

[R gould]

You could try fabric paint or gaffer tape, I have used both for small leaks, but if the leaks are dad I would agree with trying Bellows,They have provided bellows for me for some of my cameras that were to far gone for a repair,and they always seem to have a pattern, it seems as if they are the major bellows suppliers to the photographic industry, they are not cheap but their bellows will last a lifetime,Richard

 

[L.J.SILVER]

bellows repair

Whatever you do, don't paint over it with vinyl paint as I did. My Linhof bag bellows was getting very ratty and I thought I'd extend the life of it by coating it with black vinyl paint. By the time it dried the bellows became a stiff and inflexible structure! Not a good idea. Not to hijack this thread but if anyone can recommend a remedy I'd appreciate it very much. Thanks.