bellows in silk

I made bellows for folders many years, the material I use are light proof nylon cloth for covering, cutting sheets as ribs, and cotton cloth for inner. I am not happy with the quality and the touching feeling of the nylon, but before other light-proof material and thin enough and affordable can be found, I had to live with it. It is the only layer that mask almost light out of the bellows, of course ribs can do the rest job.

Recently I changed my point of view. Since bellows is made by 3 kind of layers, to mask all the light, then I can use any material that is thin enough to make, as they block the light out when 3 layers are merged.

Acrylic paint, that is the key.

Before the layer merged, brush few times the paint on it, block all pin holes in cloth, check it under the sun, till it became opaque all over.

That widen my choice of the material, now I choose silk, because I can find many silk sheets in beautiful patterns, and they will shine under the sun.

From Drop Box

And the ribs, those little ribs keeps people trying to make bellows themselves, all the references I can find, instructed people to cut the ribs one by one by hand, carefully measured, and then pasted them one by one by hand, to the cloth, just imagine the job and time you need!!

Cutting sheet, that broadly used for shop sign, is what I use to as ribs, they can be cut by plotter, very accurate, and self adhesive on one side, so cutting was replaced by computer, and pasting ribs can be done in one minute, all in one time!

And because I replace the job from hand by computer, a graphics program is needed. the pattern is changed, ribs are all pointed angles at sides, compared to traditional way, there are two sides of ribs in rectangle shape.

From Drop Box