Leather bellows care

[Guadarmar]

Iam looking for some tips to help my Wisner kid leather bellows
to stay in healty clean shape?

[Tin Can]

Be careful

I once tried to open a very nice leather bellows that had become stuck together

Perhaps oiled and stored closed

It may have been a Wisner

I didn't buy it

[Mark Sampson]

Lexol seems to work best. That's what I used to keep the (very thin) goatskin bellows flexible, on the Tachihara I owned long ago. Don't use too much- that's what caused Tin Can's issue. Once a year should suffice.

[rorye]

I use a liquid called Vintage Camera Buddy Series Bellows Renewer which I found on EBay about five years ago. It keeps my Wisner bellows supple and well fed.

[LabRat]

Venician Cream leather preserver is widely used by the camera restoration community... Works great!!!

One note for whatever you use is thin, dried leather is very delicate once a damp preservative is applied to surface, so lightly apply first coat without rubbing, and let sit for a few days to thoroughly dry... Then repeat as above... This is to prevent material from getting too mushy and damaged... Much stronger when throughly dry...

Library suppliers have leather preservatives for old books, and there should be instructions online on how to...

Steve K

[Guadarmar]

Thanks for your tips.
Now I have to make my decision.
My conclusion is: do it regularly, do it propper, take time for the service.
The expirience says stay at one product and don't mix.

[LabRat]

Most leather preservatives have the same active product...
Lanolin, which is a collagen that the leather needs to survive... Leather is still a "living" thing and this collagen feeds the fibers keeping them flexible and strong...

If these fibers are not fed over time, they dry and weaken, and eventually tear...

The other main ingredient is silicone, which seals in the moisture, keeps the material from getting too wet, but causes problems later if leather needs repair, it is hard to bond to treated surface and hard to remove silicone...

If you treat leather every year or three, leather is happy... But leather I treated 20 years ago is still holding up well...


Steve K

[Greg Y]

I used Lexol on my old Deardorff. It's a great product. Clearly, you need to be sparing in the application and make sure the bellows are dry before folding the camera.