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Bellows Seperation
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AuthorMessage
wilkidm
Joined: 17 Feb 2003
Posts: 27
PostPosted: Wed Mar 05, 2003 2:11 am

The reason I've been asking all of the century graphic questions is that I have one that I bought several years ago at a flea market as a "project camera." It can and will be fixed up into a great little camera, but I've noticed that on one fold of the bellows, it appears as if the fabric has seperated from the outside cover. Short of replacing the nice red bellows, is there a way to fix this. Since the problem is limited to one fold, I doubt this will affect photo quality. Will it?
45PSS
Joined: 28 Sep 2001
Posts: 4081
PostPosted: Wed Mar 05, 2003 6:05 am

Remove the lens board and the ground glass pannel if possible; extend the bellows as far as possible. I usually suggest a mini mag but it might be a little too big for this camers so go with the AAA cell mag focused to spot at 1 to 2 inch distance. Turn the room lights off the darker the better. put the flashlight inside the bellows and move along the entire length of each corner as well as the lights width each side of the corner. That is the area where light leaks normally occur.
If the seperation is occuring at the seam then pulling it back and coating with a thin layer of adheasive and pressing back in place would be in order.
If Light Leaks are starting to occur through out then painting the entire inside with a thin layer of black fabric paint might be what is needed.
If it is only the one fold (pleat) then carefully cutting the inside layer, coating with contact cement or other adheasive and pressing back into place may be the order.
Leave bellows fully extended until any paint or adheasive has fully dried.
Charles

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While a picture may be worth a thousand words, a quality photograph is worth a million.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: 45PSS on 2003-03-04 22:10 ]</font>
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