Enlarger bellows for camera bellows?

[GPS]

Yup, that's what goes together with the length. But even so, seeing the poor beast it seems it'll be satisfied with whatever face lift...

[IanG]

Sometime around 1940 Merle Deardorff redesigned how bellows were made. The secret is in the spacing of the ribs and how the inner and outer liners adhere in that gap. The gap tapers a bit to provide some compression to force the bellow up. This was done on the side panels only. If this was a bellows for an 8x10 there could be 4 different width side ribs. The taper might be just a 1/16 inch. That was enough to force it up. Now was this done on every bellow? No. It is very time consuming to cut the ribs like that.
And there was a constant change of fabric. It was originally done for leather. A completely different weight rib was used for the Naugahyde bellow and for each bellow they made. Of the hundreds of Deardorffs I've restored I'm thinking less than 10percent were built this way. Cameras going to the government seem to have them and some special photographers got them. And they pinhole just like any other bellow.

Well my slightly older Agfa Ansco bellows have almost no sag and the same with some 100+ year old bellows on British field cameras.

I think the biggest surprise I've seen recently was the horrific sag of the bellows from one current US manufacturer.

Having made a few sets of bellows I have to agree 100% with your comments about the rib spacings.

Ian

[TheDeardorffGuy]

Well my slightly older Agfa Ansco bellows have almost no sag and the same with some 100+ year old bellows on British field cameras.

I think the biggest surprise I've seen recently was the horrific sag of the bellows from one current US manufacturer.

Having made a few sets of bellows I have to agree 100% with your comments about the rib spacings.

Ian

Not only that spacing but a good bond between the inner and outer liner. That bond pushed down with a tool really defines the "spring" to hold the bellows up. It is too bad that the manufacturers will not build like this. I passed this info on to many mfgrs. They know how. But it is really easy to build symetrical and add a sag clip.

[IanG]

Not only that spacing but a good bond between the inner and outer liner. That bond pushed down with a tool really defines the "spring" to hold the bellows up. It is too bad that the manufacturers will not build like this. I passed this info on to many mfgrs. They know how. But it is really easy to build symetrical and add a sag clip.

I I recieved sagging bellows on a new (and expensive) LF or ULF camera the maker would get it back and I'd want a refund or new bellows.

There's a lot of unwritten tips/secrets to making LF camera parts many are rather logical, others you pick up in passing.

I guess I was just lucky makling my own bellows to a tight tolerance which I've refined slightly.

Makes sense though

Ian