Glue used to make bellow.

[kissssss]

Hi everyone,

When we make bellows, we need some kinds of glues to cement the in-and-out liners, and bellows with front/back.

I saw a YouTube video where the guy uses a spraying glue. But then I uses this, it shows no good to stick 2 sheets of paper. For me, the fabric sheets need something better to bond together.

So, I would like to hear your every idea who certainly succeeded to DIY bellow.

Thanks 😊😊😊

[Andrew O'Neill]

When I made my own bellows several years ago, I used contact cement in a spray can. It worked really well...

[Rick A]

In the past I've used 3M Brand Spray 90 adhesive to replace headliners in cars. I've also used it to do small formica and veneer jobs. These days I would recommend Super 77 spray, it's low VOC and nearly as strong as Spray 90.

[jimskelton]

I just made a bellows and used PVA book binding glue to glue the ribs on, then used Elmer's spray adhesive to glue on the lining. With the spray adhesive, you only have 15 seconds to lay down the fabric, or it won't be permanent.

[Drew Wiley]

Spray glue is a fast ticket to a short lifespan. It should never be used except in an industrial spark-proof spray booth. Yeah, I know, people do it all the time, and I've also seen the results. And the stuff truly is infamous in its health hazards. I'm a bit skeptical about the long-term reliability of the less hazardous variety; but it's gotta be a better choice unless you want to become the next glue-sniffing deadhead. We had a direct 3M industrial distributor account, and sold multiple varieties, both in cans and aerosol, with my verbal warnings dismissed by some, mostly illegal temps applying insulation to steel pipes, and lifetime debilitated after a couple years of that.

The expert who used the spray to hang mirror-smooth stainless steel "wallpaper" died of a premature heart attack, so no telling. A big pharma multi-billionaire had each of his 22 racehorse stalls veneered with flawless stainless. The horses cost over $200,000 apiece, and deserved deluxe stalls. That was all on the ground floor of the "barn", which had only a dozen bedrooms and maybe eight bathrooms above, lived in while the much bigger guest house and real house were being built. But the rich guy stiffed this particular worker when it came to paying him. He did quite well anyway, lived on a yacht with his girlfriend, collected all kinds or expensive things including top end Lecias and Hassies which he never used. He didn't pay his income taxes, figuring he could stave them off until he died, which proved true. All of that was seized by the State before the Feds could get to it, and auctioned off.

[Barry Kirsten]

Every bellows I've made I've glued the ribs with contact cement applied by brush, then spray contact cement for attaching the liner. Most information I've read about making bellows seems to recommend that process and I've never had a problem doing it that way. The health risks mentioned by Drew are worth keeping in mind.

[John Layton]

...and don't believe that "low VOC" necessarily equates to anything remotely close to "safe." Just sayin'!

[Drew Wiley]

I'd recommend Barge Cement (brush applied) if one weren't in a hurry, or just doing minor pleat repairs. But one has to be careful with the fumes and flammability of that too.

VOC rules are interesting. We have the strongest rules here on the West Coast; and being involved with industrial coatings sales for several decades (among other product categories), I'm especially aware of the back and forth. Low VOC is generally tied to smog reduction. To literally quote an Air Resources Board official I was in contact with (albeit himself speaking cynically):
"We don't give a damn if it kills people; that's EPA's responsibility. All we care about is smog". And indeed, certain products were de-smoggified by substituting health-hazardous solvents for atmospheric pollutants. Or on the EPA side, suspected carcinogens were replaced by known carcinogens. One needs to be wise with contact cements regardless, and assume that nitrile gloves and good ventilation need to be routinely used - and certainly no smoking!

The problem with "water-based" substitutes in my own experience is that they are less aggressive and often need to be applied thicker; and are also more sensitive to ambient humidity or cold during the work session. So bonding failures on edges tend to more common. When in doubt, experiment on scrap material first, and test it's bending qualities when fully dry, before undertaking any valuable project.

[John Layton]

...and do make sure that whatever ventilation system is used (while using contact cement) - does not create any obvious electrical arcs while operating!

[Rick A]

There are water based contact adhesives, Weldwood sells a decent water base adhesive, latex base, no smell and brushable. It works better if you can spray it and get a more even coat. I would still use a sprayable low VOC adhesive for such a small job, maybe do it outside or in the garage.

[Drew Wiley]

Gosh, even the variety of ducting can be a life death decision is they're not properly grounded and spark resistant. I've known of lacquer explosions that shattered windows sixty miles away. Everyone thought a nuke war had begun. A manufacturer of it was only six blocks away. I use "was" in the past tense.

[jimskelton]

Who knew making a bellows could be so dangerous? I mean, by using spray adhesive I've apparently cut years off of my life. And apparently I'm lucky nothing exploded during its assembly.

Really, we're talking about making one bellows here. Spray adhesive will likely not shorten anyone's lifespan significantly if common sense precautions are taken.

[John Layton]

...but you could, just by inhaling those fumes...spontaneously combust! (just like that drummer in "This Is Spinal Tap," who was that guy?)

[Rick A]

Who knew making a bellows could be so dangerous? I mean, by using spray adhesive I've apparently cut years off of my life. And apparently I'm lucky nothing exploded during its assembly.

Really, we're talking about making one bellows here. Spray adhesive will likely not shorten anyone's lifespan significantly if common sense precautions are taken.

Yup, but then there's always that one alarmist who knows everything what's best for everybody. So, surround yourself with bubble wrap and don't breath the air.

[Drew Wiley]

Go ahead, call it "alarmist" is you want. You're just plain ignorant if that is your impression. Almost an entire generation of the pro picture framing trade died prematurely when these spray adhesives first came out. Those products became infamous. I have personally known numerous individuals with a nonchalant attitude who now shake uncontrollably, or got mentally incapacitated and violent, or died of cancer, or were literally blown up or burned to death. By law, back then we had an entire library and staff librarian in charge of MSDS sheets and tech info, prior to current internet downloading convenience. Those are meant to be read. And yes, I do know what I am talking about. I was expected and paid to know; it was my responsibility, and hundreds of pros relied on my advice. I was personally involved in EPA safety-licensing more than 2200 contractors.

And I've been involved in selling entire cargo containers worth of these kinds of products to Military contractors. Had factories making them nearby, and saw what happened to the workers and even owners, plus the fires and explosions, the horrible cancers, the advancing of bright personalities to almost vegetative dull stares. And without serious precautions, and serious ventilation, using these things literally is "glue sniffing". Even if the adhesive involved is less hazardous or flammable than the old hot solvent varieties, the propellants themselves might be just as seriously risky.

As for spontaneous combustion - I'm aware of hundreds of specific incidents right around here just in the past decade, many of them fatal, several of them destroying half a city block at a time, quite a few houses burned down, a few far bigger industrial incidents, and every one of these entirely preventable if people had bothered to read labels and MSDS sheets and followed the rules. For those who think they don't need to know what a spark-proof spray booth consists of, in the trades we called that the Darwin award.

[Andrew O'Neill]

I wore a respirator when I used the spray adhesive (I believe it was Elmer's adhesive), in a ventilated space. I used the spray once. I hardly suspect that it cut years off of my life. One person, making one bellows for themselves shouldn't be an issue.

[Rick A]

I wore a respirator when I used the spray adhesive (I believe it was Elmer's adhesive), in a ventilated space. I used the spray once. I hardly suspect that it cut years off of my life. One person, making one bellows for themselves shouldn't be an issue.

Exactly.

[Drew Wiley]

This entire class of chemicals acts in a cumulative manner, and is encountered in various modern products. The less overall exposure, the better. I'm obviously concerned about how much I've been cumulatively exposed to over the decades, since safety precautions were mocked at when I was younger, even regarding things like asbestos and pentachlorophenol. And with respect to lacquers, certain types which are now illegal to sell to a pro cabinet shop, for example, in any volume whatsoever, are actually present in nail polish.

I once had an ambulance emergency med tech tell me that in just the past two months he had to resuscitate eight women in nail salons, and had done so many times before. That is an infamously unregulated abuse of such ingredients, and largely unventilated; but it also informs one that single exposure incidents can in fact be dangerous or even fatal in unventilated spaces. Nail polish is also classified as the most common form of hazardous waste found in ordinary landfills, which actually belongs in hazmat waste instead. Just one example of many of the things we might get exposed to one way or another in daily life, including spray paint, without recognizing the cumulative overall exposure. People might get annoyed with stricter rules and labeling - but let's face it - it's one reason people in the trades today do live longer than they once did, except where such restrictions are deliberately violated, which is also unfortunately commonplace, especially with undocumented workers. Health and safety abuses by the military could be of almost ridiculous scale, and pre-sensitized a lot of people.

So saying a single bellows project has no effect is begging the question. You have no idea how much any specific person has already been exposed to a similar class of chemicals beforehand, or will be in the future, or how close to a health threshold point they have come, whether another bellows project is ever involved or not. Hyper-sensitization can also suddenly occur. You take anecdotal cases like yourself, and just assume something, without understanding the big picture. On the other hand, someone like myself has met thousands of people interacting with those seemingly casual solvent scenarios, with a percent of those, especially careless macho "artiste" types, becoming seriously debilitated in one way or another. It's a roll of the dice. We've all have more cumulative exposure to some of these solvents and ingredients than we realize.

Sure, I use contact cements and so forth myself, but always outdoors with the breeze taking the fumes the opposite direction from me. An organic vapor respirator can also help, but not a mere dust mask like nail polish salon workers sometimes wear. My last project was re-laminating my Durst enlarger baseboards with new black Formica. I've done plenty of countertops too, but always the safe manner with good ventilation, and avoiding spray applications unless an effective spray booth was in place involving a sparkproof system.

[Rick A]

Back to the OP's question, when you have your two sides sprayed, place a sheet of waxed paper between them to line them up and slowly pull it out as you go so they stay aligned.

[Greg Blank]

As I am now, been working in a job shop that makes Military and Aerospace parts, the biggest culprit I see is Toluene. But we also use lots of Acetone, I personally spray various forms of Epoxy resin. (Using a Respirator in a non confined area (with ventilation). Toluene is terrible when the can is open I can smell it thirty feet away in a very large work area. Thankfully I don’t personally require it.

So Drew where does one get the rubberized camera cloth? ��

[Drew Wiley]

I don't know about the cloth, Greg. The only time I needed a new bellows that wasn't available right off the shelf somewhere, I had Custom Bellows in the UK make if for me. Toluene I do know about it. It's why I never allowed a colorant machine on the premises related to hot solvent industrial or automotive coatings. Had all the hot stuff bulk tinted at the factory itself and shipped directly to the overseas military contractors, like Raytheon. Illegal to use most such coatings here without a special exemption. Where toluene did come into play domestically were in auto paint colorants, prior to the current trend toward automotive acrylics. We liked to hire people from that trade for our own architectural color matching work because they did it best. But two of them went nutty - ordinarily meek as a lamb, but one right out of nowhere assaulted the company manager without even knowing why, or remembering he did it, and another stabbed his own brother at the dinner table after work and didn't know why. A couple others were goofy as could be. No more of those!

But the really crazy incidents.... Some guy was pumping lacquer thinner out of a RR tank car six blocks away when a massive explosion rocked our own whole giant building and generally made a mess. The darn steel tank car was literally vaporized to a considerable extent, along with every trace of the individual involved. But his cigarette lighter was found intact on the ground beside the tracks.

Weirder still, someone near the oil refinery set off a spark at the giant toluene tank owned by a different corporation (not Chevron - they don't allow toluene there). The hot air cloud peripheral to the chemical explosion itself buoyed the guy way way up into the air and slowly let him back down unhurt on someone's hedges several blocks away! That must have been an incredible theme park ride.

The replacement tank had some fool sneak in and remove its big brass valve at the bottom to sell to recycling, and polluted the Bay with about 5,000 gallons of the nasty stuff. Surprised he survived, but maybe not in the long haul.

Also in the vicinity was a furniture dipping/stripping service which used almost straight toluene. They also sold it to retailers in gallons. The last time I saw the owner of that chemical company, he had a permanent huge grin on him, walked in slow high goose steps, and said to me, "Ishe been wurkin wish it fer shirty yearsh, and it hashn't hurt me a bit."

In terms of epoxies, we sold more marine epoxy than the factory outlet itself down the freeway. It worked wonders for structural repairs, albeit expensively. The big problem with that was sensitization. Their counter worker had to quit due to it, and couldn't even touch a baked enamel desk coated decades before without breaking out into hives. The owner himself got caught up in a particular religious cult that fleeced him of 40% of his income, bankrupted, and had to sell his shares to a competitor, who has kept both their own brand and his in parallel production. I try not to use penetrating epoxies any more unless as a last resort, or for something like a waterproof darkroom application. But 2-part epoxies due the trick far better than penetrating polyester solutions, which are equally nasty to work with, probably worse, in fact.

[r_a_feldman]

But the really crazy incidents.... Some guy was pumping lacquer thinner out of a RR tank car six blocks away when a massive explosion rocked our own whole giant building and generally made a mess. The darn steel tank car was literally vaporized to a considerable extent, along with every trace of the individual involved. But his cigarette lighter was found intact on the ground beside the tracks.

There is a famous (at least within the academic field) example in Linguistics of a worker blowing himself up by dropping a cigarette into an “empty” 55 gallon drum that had held a flammable solvent. On year when I was in Peru, several people were killed welding the tank of an oil tank truck without sufficiently ventilating the tank beforehand. My grandfather survived an explosion in Chicago in 1917 when he was a building janitor. He smelled gas in the basement and called the gas company. The two workers who came were a little tipsy from their lunch beer and one lit up a cigar. Fortunately, my grandfather was not in the basement with them, as the whole tenament building was destroyed.

[Drew Wiley]

There is such a huge quantity of urban and industrial fires around here it is hard to keep up with the causes. Something like 94 occurred just last year alone due to homeless encampments in industrial areas. Before I retired a few years ago, there was a big one that shut down the Freeway most of the day and nearly got one of our warehouses. The City Public Works Dept had the stupidity to store used 55 gal oil drums right under the freeway; yet the City ignored the homeless encampment right beside that. One cold night, they discovered how easy it was to start a warming fire in one of those drums. But most of these people have mental or drug issues. Our own employees along with the Fire Dept were attempting to cut through a chain link fence to forcibly rescue an individual who refused to leave behind his "stuff" or junk collection. They succeeded in the nick of time. I was on the opposite side of the fire tying to keep any pedestrians or gawkers a safe distance away since there were some outright oil drum explosions going on too, and saw the whole thing.

Art colonies and their carelessness with flammable products caused some really infamous fires the next year, one killing 34 persons, followed by huge criminal negligence trials, plus lawsuits. Illegal dope smoking on the job yet more, and a spontaneous combustion fire right across the street from one of our warehouses decimated half a block in very short order. That started in an import furniture company where they did their own wood finishing using linseed-oil-based products and rags, an infamously dangerous combination. I warned the owner about it in person just two days prior, but he shrugged his shoulders and said he couldn't afford to pay for more competent employees. But two other businesses other than his were destroyed due to it. The only silver lining is that it happened after hours, so no people were injured of killed. But the same kind of thing happens multiple times a week in this overall metropolitan area. The two biggest fires this past month were due to residential meth labs uncharacteristically in upscale neighborhoods, and there was a horrific death.