And while I’m at it…

…I might as well strip down the Watson & Sons wet plate camera.

Wetplatecamera

The original bellows is very brittle and split in several places, its also very short for the total extension of the camera. From what I can see it looks like a very thin layer of Moroccan leather backed with Buckram, very similar in technique to decent book binding.

OldBellows

Obviously, sheets of leather this size are going to cost an arm and a leg so I’ve been looking for alternative modern textiles.

I briefly toyed with the idea of Fablon, its light tight, waterproof and adhesive but I’m not sure how flexible it would be especially when I start folding and creasing it.

Good old Feepay led me to a company in Salford thats selling off rolls of leatherette in varying thickness and colours. I called in a got a couple of samples. One is thick enough to be used on its own and is 100% light tight, the reverse could easily be dyed black for the interior of the bellows. The second leatherette is much much thinner but is a little elastic and therefore not 100% light tight but as its so thin I’d have to use multiple layers so would solve that problem.

Leatheretee

I’ve also asked for a sample of black Buckram book cloth to see if this would go well with the thinner leatherette. So hopefully I can start looking at actually making a bellows for this camera, then the Kodak Studio Camera, and then the 12×15 camera..etc etc