the BELLOWS problem

[barryjyoung]

With all due respect to Barry, I bought his pamphlet and I saw some problems with his method, especially for the tapered bellows. It might work for a large bellows where a bit of slop wouldn't matter, but it wasn't very precise and I think you'd definitely have problems in a case where your dimensions were critical (e.g. on a smaller camera).

Hi Walter:

What specifically was not precise in my method? It is mathematically based. I see no room for less than precise results with careful workmanship.

Anything you can provide as far as substantiuve information will make future editions better.

Thank you.

 

[barryjyoung]

I bought Barry's book as well and I agree with you on all points. It is a good book, especially for pulling all of the information together. The real value of the book would come into play if you plan to make more than one copy of the same bellows, as he spends the vast majority of the time on using a CAD program to do the layout, and then having the resulting layout printed professionally. At present I don't have a CAD program and anything I do will be a one-off, so I'm not using that. Still, it's a good book and I'm glad I bought it.

Nathan

Thank you Nathan, I am glad you enjoyed the book. A free CAD program (one of the ones I use) is available in a fully functional trial version at:

http://www.download.com/ProgeCAD-2008-Professional/3000-6677_4-10777004.html

There is a pretty steep learning curve on this program, but that is to be expected with any truly powerful program.

Thanks for the nice comments.

 

[jsfyfe]

I've been making bellows for Isolettes/Speedex for the past 4 months or so. I have posted my process (.pdf file) at the following location:

http://www.rolandandcaroline.co.uk/html/isolette_bellows.html

I use leather for both the liner and cover with regular card stock paper (from Michael's craft store) for the stiffeners. The leather is purchased from:

http://www.columbiaorgan.com/col/skins.htm#CPL Clock

Since I am making small bellows I can purchase the 6x12" pieces of XXX Thin leather (.007" in thickness). These are just the right size for the Isolette bellows. I've made bellows for a larger camera (6x9) by piecing the 6x12" pieces together but that is not the optimum way to do it.

For larger bellows you may be able to use the full skins that Columbia sells. They sell an extra thin (.008 to .010") skin for $8.95 a square foot.

Once you get the hang of it, bellows are pretty easy to make, especially if you have an old one to use as a template. I've sold quite a few reconditioned cameras in the past few months. Here's one of the latest with the new bellows.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=250197009913&ssPageName=STRK:MESO:IT&ih=015

NOTE: I do this as a personal hobby so please don't ask me to recondition your camera. Thanks.

 

[CRhymer]

Hello jsfyfe,

Thank you for the links. Columbia Organ Leathers looks like just the ticket. The only supplier of thin leather that I had found was in the UK, and the price with shipping was prohibitive for lower end camera restoration.

Cheers,
Clarence

 

[Sandeha Lynch]

Hello jsfyfe,

Thank you for the links. Columbia Organ Leathers looks like just the ticket. The only supplier of thin leather that I had found was in the UK, and the price with shipping was prohibitive for lower end camera restoration.

Cheers,
Clarence

Hi Clarence

Could you post a link to the leather supplier in the UK, please?

It would save me postage !!

 

[CRhymer]

Skiver

Hello Sandeha,

I was afraid someone would ask. The short answer (I think) is:

http://www.hewit.com/acatalog/Skiver__Sheep_.html

Now for the explanation:

I retired five years ago. Some time before that, my Curator of Collections, who also had a graduate degree in Library Science and had done some bookbinding as a hobby, suggested that I try skiver to make replacement red bellows for a rebadged 12x10 Sanderson “type” camera. I found the above link, IIRC, but was put off by the cost, shipping, etc. I believe their product is a bit too thick for smaller bellows. However, after you asked, I did a bit of searching (Google) to find the link from six-odd years ago. There appear to be a number of suppliers of thin leathers that don't supply to the camera bellows industry in the main. I can not make any recommendations, since I have not done enough research or any trials. I don't know if I missed other links before, or if the internet has just expanded so much that more sites are accessible. Other possible UK suppliers are:

http://www.leprevo.co.uk/hides.html

http://www.jamiltonupholstery.co.uk/shop_product.asp?dept=30

http://www.chamois.com/skiverleather.htm

http://www.antiqueleathers.com/prices.php

http://www.antique-leathers.co.uk/products/loose.html

Skiver also refers to a leather working tool or the operator (not to mention the vernacular uses). As leather, it usually refers to thin sheep skin. I believe it can be as thin as 0.2 mm.

The above links lead to suppliers of finished product as well as bulk material, but it appears that some will supply the skiver in custom cut sizes or whole hides. I apologize if this is old news to you, but most bellows makers seem to use synthetics, so I haven’t seen many references to sources of leather of the proper type.

If you find any of the above useful, please advise. There is also this company in İzmir

http://www.zimeks.com/skiver.htm

and this one in Germany

http://www.buchbinderleder.de/

There must be suppliers in Italy as well (not to mention New Zealand).

About 20 years ago my wife's second cousin's husband was the plant manager for a tannery, but the tanning business has pretty much gone gefutz in Canada.

Cheers,
Clarence

 

[Sandeha Lynch]

Very comprehensive and helpful. Thank you.

It'll be a while before I try any of these, as I'm not planning on making bellows again any time soon. However, given the difficulty in sourcing thin high quality lightproof material, this is information worth having. Even the stuff from Porter's (which I used for a whole plate bellows) is a compromise.

Cheers !!

 

[Greg_E]

In the USA, you can get nice leather from:
Dead Link Removed

I have their sample books, and some of the skiver and composite leathers may be thin enough for a bellows. You can also sometimes get nice thin goatskin on ebay, just make sure that you check out the thickness before buying. Most of the garment quality leathers that are thin enough would make a nice bag bellows, but I'm not sure how well they would work for a folded bellows are they are extremely flexible.

Bonded (composite) leather:
Dead Link Removed

 

[CRhymer]

Hello Greg,

I see that they sell some of the Hewit product. They seem a bit pricey, but that may be due to good quality/service, etc. The bonded product looks interesting, because it is available in 56" width.

I was considering calling them, since shipping to me is cheaper (but slower) from the US than the UK. From their web site, they appear to be a solid company. What did you think of the quality of their samples?

In the early 80's I knew two fellows who owned a glove manufactory in Winnipeg. The business was quite old, but they were new owners. At one time hunters would bring in a green deer hide and get a pair of fine gloves in return. By the 80's most of the tanned deer was coming from Gloversville, NY. They were also starting to import finished product from Asia. It was cheaper to import than get hides tanned locally. I had never heard of Gloversville, but it appears to still be the hub of that industry. There are some eBay sellers in that area. Winnipeg used to have a quite active shmatta trade, but that was then.

By the way, I have tanned caribou, moose, and bison hide by traditional methods. It is hard work.

Thank you for the link.

Cheers,
Clarence

 

[Greg_E]

The samples are all top quality, but it is somewhat difficult to really know since it is a small piece glued to card stock, they did away with the flip books a while ago (so says the site). Their prices are pretty much in line with all the highest quality goods I could find elsewhere on the web (except ebay and then you never know what you are getting). I've purchased some really nice scraps on ebay, and some not so nice pieces for recovering cameras, so I wouldn't completely rule that out as a source of decent quality leather.

The Hewitt stuff is more expensive because of the cost of importing it, and it is supposed to be some of the best stuff. I think they only import the top grade from Hewitt and then they say they inspect each hide to make sure it is of the highest quality.

They did ship my samples really fast.

The only thing about the composite leather that I didn't like is that it had a kind of slippery feel to it. Since I was shopping for leather to cover a TLR, I decided slippery was a bad thing. Ended up buying many different scraps and samples on ebay until I ended up with a nice thin piece of black goatskin that is waiting for me to restore an original model Rollieflex TLR (second year of production I think). If you have never covered a camera in the nice soft garment leathers, you don't know what nice is. Compared to the hard thin cold leather on most cameras, it's soft and warm and gives you a great grip without straining your muscles. I have a Yashica 635 in a somewhat too thick red sheepskin, but it is so soft to hold now, much nicer than the stock leather. Anyway back to the composite stuff, it is stiff enough that it would probably make a really nice folded bellows, though the corners might be a little difficult. Artificial leather (Pleather) might be better for a bellows.

One of these days I need to buy a couple of books on book binding/making to add to my knowledge. Though I did recently make a perfect bound book of a user manual for a piece of equipment. it was a half letter sized of about 200 pages, and I was sitting looking at the pile of pages and thinking. Had some PVA on hand for another project and a bunch of clamps... Seems to have turned out OK for the number of times I've tried this (being number 1).

I forget how far away Gloversville is from me, I'm thinking not to far to the North, but I can't really remember.

 

[CRhymer]

Hello Greg,

Thank you for all the information. Well, I am a very long way from Gloversville, or pretty much anywhere. I don't know if they still do as much tanning there, since so much of this sort of work has gone "off-shore". I have a number of camera recovering jobs to do as well, so this is all very helpful.

Cheers,
Clarence

 

[jsfyfe]

If you're looking to cover a camera then this is a good place to start.

http://www.cameraleather.com/

They also have a good online tutorial on how to do it. I've used their self-adhesive covering for my old folders and it has come out quite nicely.

 

[barryjyoung]

With all due respect to Barry, I bought his pamphlet .

From Wikipedia:

A pamphlet is an unbound booklet (that is, without a hard cover or binding. It may consist of a single sheet of that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths (called a leaflet), or it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half and stapled at the crease to make a simple book.

Modern Bellowsmaking is a bound 34 page book or booklet, not a pamphlet.

 

[phfitz]

Hi all,

"Order Porter's premium nylon blackout fabric for the bellows material. Perhaps the fabric could be used with the dull rubberized layer towards the inside with stiffeners and an outer layer of fabric (of your choice from the fabric store) glued to the shiny nylon surface."

Just received this from Porter's and it looks perfect for the inner liner. Now the question: what glue to use?

I would prefer not to use contact cements for the smell and fire hazard. Water based glues will not work, tried.

Any ideas?
Thanks.

 

[richard ide]

How about water base contact cement? I have used this for many purposes as well as mounting and in my opinion is very similar to solvent base cement.

 

[Sandeha Lynch]

I used Evo-Stick "solvent free" Impact, multi-purpose contact cement on the back of the Porter's material. Half a tin of that worked fine. Then tyre-repair rubber glue for the seam.

 

[ic-racer]

Bellows are a bitch ... I'm glad I made one, but from now on - hell no!

+1


I think most of the good info is in the above posts, but here is my experience building an 8x10 bellows. http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=29267

I used to be a little cavalier about camera bellows; considering them a consumable item, like tires on a car. That was unitl I priced new ones, and built one. Now I treat them like precious gems...