There are plenty of on-line resources for designing and making bellows. And, of course a few excellent commercial enterprises - both in the UK and the US.
But I still think it would useful to show how to make a set of bellows for the cameras made in Germany (mostly) for Studio cameras and Tailboard (reisekameras) cameras. This is very much a hobby activity!
These differ from the anglo-saxon tradition in being made up of 4 separate pieces with 4 corner joins, rather than out of a single piece of leather/material with a single overlap underneath the bellows.
The material used for these 4 pieces was never leather. It was reinforced paper/card or coated "double duck" material - the same material used for early car hoods. This material stands up to time very well - but not to damp storage. The 4 leather strips, subject to folds and misfolds during the decades, is where the pin holes (and worse) appear.
I am just starting on making a totally new belows for a 30x40cm camera and thought that a thread would help me keep focussed on getting finished as quickly as possible as well as, hopefully, being useful for others! Will be useful for repairing the 4 corner strips as well - but, based on own experience, this can only be done if the bellows is totally removed from the camera.
So this bellows design is found on:
German reisekameras - mostly 13x18cm (there were thousands of these made) and 18x24, 24x30 and 30x40cm.
German studio cameras - many sizes starting at 18x24cm.
Perhaps exported Germany cameras, sold as 5x7" Tailback?
I enclose some photographs showing the varieties I have. The first one is 30x40cm Reisekamera - this is the bellows I am making a copy of.
The second one is 18x24 ditto. The third and fourth are Görlitzer type studio cameras. The last one has been repaired with stiff vinyl strips but still works to some extent.
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