Building a new bag bellows

[Soocom1]

A few weeks ago I had posted a thread on upgrading from on old Calumet CC-400 LF to something else,and a deal came along that was too hard to pass up.
A Toyo 45C in really great shape EXCEPT the bellows were beyond repair and needed replacement.
For $45 US and up for a challenge, I proceeded on researching and working with, and finding out the difficulty in making a bag bellows.

The process was not as easy as I had thought but the end result I think is worth it.

Having to look around, leather was out of the question because the cost of the leather alone was more than a replacement bellows.

The local cloth stores typically carry alot of upholstery material which is fine, but heavy.

I wound up settling on a "Pleather" fabric that had a black inner backing and an outside greyish brown molted leather like appearance.

The two pieces for the standards were cut from the same material I made the changing bag out of:
so I made one..


I wound up making some piping for the standards where they attach to the bag itself.

That was NOT easy!

While doing the work I was visited by a little guy who's curiosity was piqued with me using the Bernina..

The bag after sewing it together:

And on the camera itself:

Ill see how this turns out.


And unless your a real creative type with a glutton for punishment.....
Don't try it at home.

 

[IanG]

I had bag bellows made by Camera Bellows now Custom Bellows back in 1977 for my De Vere monorail camera. The middle should be larger/wider with edge stiffeners, you need that to stop them flopping. You could add something.

Ian

 

[Derrel]

Agree,the middle needs to be "puffier"...