My first set of bellows

[Ian Greenhalgh]

I needed to make a replacement set of bellows for the half plate/5x7 Lancaster Instantograph I'm restoring. I'd never tried to do anything like this before but it came out pretty nice I think. I didn't skimp on the materials, they are very robust as I used a double layer construction, the inner layer is rubberised blackout material for lining curtains, one side is white rubber, the other is black velveteen. The outer layer is red leatherette. Each of the four sides has 21 cardboard stiffener pieces. The folds are 20mm, the stiffeners are 15mm wide, cutting 84 stiffeners then gluing them with impact adhesive to the inner material was rather tedious and time consuming. The two layers are laminated together with a generous layer of impact adhesive (red Evostik) and I placed the seam of the inner on the opposite side to the seam of the outer, so the bellows are extremely strong, I doubt there will ever be any risk of holes or leaks in this thing, it's built to last.

[Regular Rod]

Fantastic!

Thank you for posting this. It is most inspiring...

Did you record a step-by-step build by any chance? Where did you source the materials?

RR

[Steve Smith]

Looks good to me.

cutting 84 stiffeners then gluing them with impact adhesive to the inner material was rather tedious and time consuming

Unless you use my method of laser cutting!

http://stevesmithphoto.webs.com/bellows.html


Steve.

[Ian Greenhalgh]

I didn't record a step-by-step because I didn't know if it would work or not. I'm gonna make some more and I will document those.

Material came from ebay, there's loads to choose from.

Laser cutting would be great, sadly all I had was a pair of scissors.

[Jim C.]

Nice work, the material you used looks kind of thick and you used three layers of material,
did you take into account the thickness of the bellows when it's compressed down ?

[Ian Greenhalgh]

It's only two layers. Yes, the outer material is a bit thicker than ideal, but they compress enough.

[BradS]

Wow! Awesome. Really fantastic job. Thanks for sharing.

[Michael Cienfuegos]

This really is awesome! It gives me hope that I'll be able to make my own bellows for one of my Kodak 2D 5x7s, which is still in pieces.

[Ian Greenhalgh]

Cheers guys. Wasn't that difficult, just time consuming.