Best materials for making bellows

[Sully75]

Hi there,

I'm currently restoring a Kodak No.33 5x7 view camera. The bellows are really trashed. I'm planning on making a new bellows.

I've looked around a lot online but have yet to find a definitively good source for bellows material. Is there anywhere to order fabric online that's appropriate? Ideally I'd like to add in a little more extension to the camera (possibly creating a bed extension), so if I got something that might be a little more compact than the original that would be awesome but I'd be happy to just get the camera working again.

 

[Sully75]

Would this work?
http://www.lightsonretail.com/Merch...D&Product_Code=Duvetyne&Category_Code=Fabrics

 

[vdoak]

Hello

take a look at this thread. It might help.

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

I used porters dark room cloth as a liner and covered it with the thinnest black lining cloth I could find at the local cloth store. For me the bellows work well but are a little thick.

http://www.porters.com/black-out-opaque-plastic-cloth-48-x-16-ft-roll.html


good luck with your search.

 

[Sully75]

I ended up covering them with gaffers tape. I was fairly careful and they look ok, if not pretty good. I'm going to spray paint them flat black, I think it will be hard to tell. The only thing I'm concerned about is that they will fold up in the camera. They are currently getting crushed by a couple of books to make them thing out.

Thanks for the post...that was awesome.