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Thread: What's the best available bellows fabric?

  1. #121

    Join Date
    Nov 2007
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    1,127

    Re: What's the best available bellows fabric?

    I spread the glue with a brush, word of caution is that the glue has a high amount of solvent in it so as well as having good ventilation while using the glue, it will also cause the BK5 to 'pucker' if you apply too heavy a coat, test on some scraps before you go whole hog with it to get the feel of what it will be like.

    I didn't do two layers of the BK5 because I'm restoring a Kodak 2D and i wanted the red bellows.

  2. #122

    Join Date
    Feb 2010
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    1,015

    Re: What's the best available bellows fabric?

    Jim, I was thinking about using a roller. Your thoughts?

  3. #123

    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    1,127

    Re: What's the best available bellows fabric?

    Never tried a roller, the brush made it easy for me to work with the ribs
    but I guess a roller would work after the ribs are glued in place, you'd still have to
    roll the glue in sections and lay down the BK5 because of the short work time the HH-66 has.

  4. #124

    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Posts
    1,015

    Re: What's the best available bellows fabric?

    ok so I ended up making a set of bellows with 2 layers of BK5. I used a couple of sheets of Epson watercolor paper I had lying around, they had pictures on them.

    I ended up just laying the bellows on top of the epson paper and pricking through them at the corners to get the pattern. Cut a gap between each fold. The challenge was getting the two sides to meet up and getting the two layers of fabric and the corners of the stifteners to all meet up nicely. It was all sort of half assed and a real frig but I got it together.

    I used the glue mentioned above (hh-66? it's late, I can't remember). It worked well. Used a respirator, but did it on my kitchen table. The smell didn't last too long. I used some disposable foam brushes, which worked ok but they were really crappy ones and each one of them broke through the process. Decent quality foam would be ok.

    No real complaints, the bellows look good, the glue worked well. Wish I had spent a little more time with layout, but they ended up working well. They pack down really thin and fit the camera (japanese 1/2 plate) that I was making them for.

    Let me know if you have any questions. BK5 is not light tight with 1 layer but it looks pretty good with 2 layers (flash at full power doesn't show through with a digital camera and a wide open lens).

  5. #125

    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Posts
    1,015

    Re: What's the best available bellows fabric?

    ok yeah, one thing, I would suggest you buy more glue than you think you will use. I didn't have a problem with puckering but I started to get pretty low on glue towards the end. There are some pockets that didn't really get saturated. I'm not sure the size I ended up buying, I think it was the 2nd smallest size but I wish I had had more.

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