What's the best available bellows fabric?

[sully75]

Hello all,

Need to make a set of bellows. Anyone have any suggestions for something that's currently available? Lots of suggestions on the forum but I'm still not sure what's good.

Thanks!
Paul

[Doug Herta]

I used:

http://www.freestylephoto.biz/260110...-1?cat_id=1603

I sandwich ribs made from Yupo between two layers of the cloth bonded with contact cement.

[Jim C.]

It depends on how much you want to spend, and how authentic you want the
bellows to be. Thin pared leather is going to cost you, book cloth is cheaper but still
might be costly depending on the size of the bellows.
If you just want something to shoot with, book cloth and Thorlabs blackout fabric
or Doug's suggestion of duvetyne, I don't know how thick Freestyles is but the stuff
I get from Set Shop is pretty heavy for camera bellows unless you make bag bellows.

[Steven Tribe]

It is very easy to forget the need for guestimating the thickness of compressed pleats of the new bellows using new (thicker or extra layers?) materials! There are a lot of camera designs where just a few millimeters of extra total thickness will prohibit "collapsability". From my own experience!

[Tim k]

I used:

http://www.freestylephoto.biz/260110...-1?cat_id=1603

I sandwich ribs made from Yupo between two layers of the cloth bonded with contact cement.

Doug, off the top of your head, can you say how this this stuff is?
thx

[John Bowen]

Have you checked out this article on Bellows construction?

http://www.jbhphoto.com/articles/bellows/bbuild.htm

[jon.oman]

The 'duvetyne' at Freestyle must be a new product for them. I searched their whole site once, and never found anything like it. Thanks for pointing it out!

Jon

[sully75]

I used:

http://www.freestylephoto.biz/260110...-1?cat_id=1603

I sandwich ribs made from Yupo between two layers of the cloth bonded with contact cement.

That stuff looks great, is it thin? The camera I need to make bellows for folds up so thin it's ridiculous.

What's Yupo?

[Andrew O'Neill]

Yupo: http://www.yupousa.com/paper/index.php

I buy mine at a local art supplier in Vancouver in large sheets or pads. I use it as tissue support for carbon transfer printing.

I also would like to know how thin this Duvetyne is as I will be constructing a bellows for my 14x17 camera.

[Brian Ellis]

I second Steven's warning about making the bellows too thick. I've never made my own bellows but I had a bellows made for a Linhof Technikardan by a company in Clearwater, Florida years ago. The bellows looked great and certainly kept the light out. Only problem was it was too thick so I couldn't fold up the camera.