When making replacement bellows for old cameras, a stiffer material is glued everywhere that doesn't bend. The stiffener can be anything, frequently thin cardboard is used. This forces the fabric to bend where you want and nowhere else. In most cases, there is an outer layer of leather or some sturdy fabric (your rubberised fabric would be ideal), then the trapezoid shaped stiffeners get glued on with space between then for the fold, then usually a much lighter fabric glued on the inside. Leave more room at the fold than you really need when creating the gaps in the stiffener material. The inside fabric can be very thin, the thinner it is, the less it interferes with folding, you want this just thick enough to hold down the stiffeners so they can't come loose over time. With all the layers glued, the fabric doesn't fight you during the fold, and you don't need to sew the folds.
I made one out of paper that i then covered in plasti dip back in 2010 when me and a mate made a 4'*8' cnc router from scratch. It actually worked like a treat!
Hey! I got a minilathe recently and this is video is super useful. I hope you've been well and I'm glad to see you're still making videos. Keep your stick on the ice.
I made one of these years ago for my last little lathe. I did it on the cheap though. I found some iron on denim repair patches, cut that stuff into trapezium sections, and ironed them on the back of some thin denim I cut from an old pair of cheap black jeans. The iron on material stiffened up the ribs just enough that it folded up neatly. The only real mistake I made was treating it with dubbing wax BEFORE deciding to try and iron the pleats in a bit sharper. That stuff stank to high heaven when it got hot. :D With the extra thickness of the backing material it didn't concertina down to a particularly compact size (Going from about 2' foot fully extended, down to about 4 or 4.5" when closed up...... Depending on how clean it was. :D), but as that lathe had a thicker than standard chuck on it, this wasn't a big issue. It looked pretty good on there too. It was a vintage lathe, and the bellow had a kind of "Well used" look from day one that kind of fitted with the whole style. it stayed on there all the time I had it, and was still in place when I eventually sold the lathe. Making that did make me think that it should be possible to make a mask for the "seams", then spray something through the mask to impregnate the cloth and stiffen up the trapezium sections to make it hold it's shape when folded. Maybe I'll have a play with that idea if I decide to make another one day?
The problem I have had with bellows from that type of material is that if you do any hard turning the chips melt through as though the material was butter.
Thanks for this, I am rebuilding a Chinese CNC machine. I need to make 2 of these 40 inches long 6.5 inches tall with a fold of 5/8 ", only mine wont have any 90 degree corners because it will lay in a track all around. I was like the other guy, I was looking at prices and WOW. Thanks
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It's much easier to get the sides bent right way around if you fold them over to backside of sheet before folding the zigzag. The bends will then already be inverted on the side flaps.
*misreads instructions, ends up with crane* one source of good fabric... shade cloth manufacturers. especially dining structure type umbrellas... wish i had thought of these when i worked at one, could have nice HF welded seams and ends, followed by a quick blast to set all the creases... lol, all i did was throw to rolled edges on a sheet with some siding extrusion to hold it on the machine... and of course, i bought new protectors just a week ago. this video came too late. they always have offcuts in the bin. its freaking expensive to buy off a roll. stuff like "teflon coated algae resistant" surfaces.
It is just a vynal coated cotton or blended fabric. There are other types like a plastic coated fabric as well. I picked that stuff up at a fabric store.
