Velcroing bellows...

[Jeffrey Goggin]

I'm refurbishing a Galvin 4x5 that I bought a few years ago. The original bellows is glued into place and not interchangeable. While I could have a replacement for it made, I'd like to make the bellows for my Toyo 23G/45G hybrid do double duty by swapping them between cameras when necessary. This would not only save money, but also let me use a bag bellows with my wide-angle lenses.

To make things easy and keep this experiment inexpensive, I would like to use some velcro strips to attach the bellows to the standards. I'm fairly sure it's strong enough to hold the bellows in place, but I'm not sure whether it'll keep the light out as well. Has anyone ever tried this?

[Doremus Scudder]

Jeffrey,

Velcro will leak light through the loop-and-pile joint. If you do use velcro to hold the bellows on, you will have to rig some kind of light trap (unless there is one already) to block the seam. Maybe a frame made of lightweight lightproof material (plastic, board, leather??) Good luck,

[Ralph Barker]

I agree with Doremus - you'll need a light trap of some sort. An aluminum chanel, mitered into a square frame, and painted flat black, might work. Look at the bellows frame and standards on your Toyo. You'll see that the light trap is built into the mating surfaces. But, that wouldn't work with a velcro-based design unless the light-trap ribs were deep enough to exceed the thickness of the velcro.