Thanks for the comments so far. I drew up rib patterns for straight and tapered bellows today, and laser cut the parts from 180 lb gray card stock--apx. 0.015 thickness. Also found some flat black 'poster board' at Michael's craft store for $0.99 per 20"x28" piece which is a bit thinner--apx. 0.010"--I'll try that next. Pics of the ribs below. Note the little tabs between ribs to hold them together. In the Intrepid Camera video of bellows assembly, this appears to be how they do it, and it looks like it will work well.
I mostly followed the JB Harlin instructions for making the tapered ribs--for whatever reason, these look like they'll fold about perfectly square.
Laser cutting saves a lot of labor, and most of the other materials are either inexpensive or stuff I had on hand. So I'm not too worried if the first iteration or two fails.
More pics as the assembly continues, hopefully later this week...
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