Start With The Bellows

I built a non folding 5" x 4" camera a few years ago. It was bulky and heavy (and, obviously, did not fold up).

Ever since building it I have wanted to improve upon it and build a lighter folding version.

I bought a set of bellows from e-Bay for 99p (about $2) which came from a Sinar Norma 5" x 4" monorail view camera so I decided to make the camera to suit the bellows.

The Sinar bellows are not as tapered as I would have liked but since they were so cheap and I don't have to make any bellows myself now, I am going to use them.

There is a plastic moulded plate at the front and rear of the bellows. The rear plate has a rebate around it's perimeter which I assume is the way it fits onto the Sinar rear standard. This rebate is 2.4mm wide. I made six "C" shaped pieces from a laminated resin material 0.8mm thick. These are overlapped three deep to fill the slot in this manner: [ ] with the inner pair rotated 90 degrees so the joins do not all line up. There are twelve holes around the periphery of the plates to fix the bellows to the rear. The laminate material is white so I have stuck a matt black vinyl onto the outer pair to make it look a bit better.