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R.W.G
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 01, 2005 - 11:46 am: | 
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Anyone out there into doing economical bellows replacement? Love to save some cameras, but repair costs well exceed value |
Dan Mitchell
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 01, 2005 - 12:52 pm: |
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What kind of cameras are you thinking about?
Sometimes you can patch the old bellows and make it usable. Something like black silicone gasket stuff works well to plug holes in the corners. Use cloth tape to repair tears in the covering. For big holes, you may have to cut out a piece of replacement material and glue it in place. If there are a lot of pinhole leaks, the bellows is beyond repair and you have to make a new one.
I've made replacement bellows for several medium format folders. It's tedious, but not really difficult. The two main problems are 1) getting good measurements from the old bellows, and 2) finding suitable material. Making the bellows is actually fairly easy.
I have some notes I wrote up and can put them up on my website if you want the info. The same principles should work on large format camera bellows, but I've never tried making one myself.
If you can find new old stock from a reapir shop, that's the easiest and cheapest way to go. You can try camerabellows.com as well to see what a new bellows would cost. Depending on the camera it may be less than you think. |
Wim Abbeloos
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 01, 2005 - 01:22 pm: |
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http://www.cyberbeach.net/~dbardell/bellows.html
http://my.net-link.net/~jsmigiel/bellows.html
Just two websites I favorited because I will be giving it a try myself soon. I also have a 1920 book on photography which describes how to make bellows. It is written in Dutch, my first language. I hope to translate parts of the book and scan the plans to make them available to more people.
The onyl adavice I can give you is not to repair them, but just replace them immediately.
Dan, I would be happy to read your notes if you decide to share them. |
charlie
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 01, 2005 - 04:13 pm: |
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I've repaired pin holes by pushing a pin down through the hole and opening the back and coating the pin point with a dab of black silicone rubber (RTV) and then pulling the pin back out of the hole. I put a small dab on the outside at that point. I leave the bellows extended for several days while the RTV cures. I don't know how long such a repair will last and it is not suitable for large holes but it allows you to test a camera's performance to see if a new bellows is worthwhile. Good luck. |
Dan Mitchell
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 01, 2005 - 10:45 pm: |
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OK. I wrote this up a few months ago but got sidetracked and never quite finished. It should be helpful:
http://daniel.mitchell.name/cameras/folders/folders.html
There is a link on the page to a more extensive document that I was considering publishing as a book. It's not quite finished, but I've included the link anyway. For now, just take it as is and use whatever you can from it, but please don't distribute it around the Internet yet. |
R.W.G
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 02, 2005 - 12:17 pm: |
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Grateful thanks to Dan,Wim, & Charlie for the helpful advice and information. |
Barry Young
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - 05:53 am: |
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We make replacement bellows starting at around $80. There is a tremendous amount of work that goes into making bellows from scratch. You are absolutely correct, some cameras are not worth a new bellows.
Barry Young
cameramaker.com |
