A little project- 3x4 field camera

Steve Smith said:
Are you just using one layer of fabric? If you are using two, you could sandwich some of the black polythene bag black and white paper comes in or even some aluminium foil to make it lightproof.


Steve.
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The current plan is just to use the one layer of painted nylon and some leatherette to make it look a little bit cleaner and to help cover any small paint patches that aren't 100%. I never thought of foil though, would it be tough enough to handle repeated compressions?
 
Sooo, I finally got round to trying my bellows... I failed.


Not a complete failure mind but not a success. The ribs are far too big so each fold is too thick, the ribs are too long so the corners don't fold correctly and most annoyingly the acrylic paint has flaked off in the corners. Not sure what to do about the base material or if I can thin the paint down and make it adhere better. Next job I think is a smaller test set with better sized ribs and maybe some leatherette to let it hold the creases better.
 
Thinking on the bellows some more, @stevelmx5 suggested some vinyl and I've seen some nice looking lighter faux leather fabric from ebay that I'll keep in mind. But for a first pass I'm thinking two layers of the silk might be enough and might look pretty good. Paint the inner layer as before and then layer up the ribs and outer layer unmolested, if that works I might even get a nicer colour than just black for the outer layer. I think this will have the advantage of being very light and fold up very small, might compensate for my cack handedness at anything.
 
Sounds like a good plan mate. If there's an obvious 'grain' in the silk (I'm sure there's a technical term for material!) then it might be worth layering it at 90 degrees to reduce the risk of any leaks.
 
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