Topic: Polaroid Land Camera Bellows Repair

[Alan]

I’ve been using this Polaroid 250 peel apart Land Camera for a number of years and it
has developed a saggy bellows problem. This is where the light proof inner
fabric becomes detached from the outer vinyl fabric and starts to sag which
can affect the image quality.

Replacement bellows can be sourced as new old stock or by robbing a healthy bellows
from a cheaper land camera model. I have chosen to repair this existing one.
Here is how I approached the task.

The tools needed for this task are viewed below . . .

[Alan]

The first step was to remove the bellows from the camera body to make the repair a little
easier to handle. First off I removed the 4 cross head screws from the glass element and
then removed the rear of the bellows by opening the metal tabs from the body.

[Alan]

The next step was to make an incision into the inner fabric to remove the
card type strips which would have originally been adhesive. Caution is
advised make sure not to damage the outer vinyl.

[Alan]

I then masked off the inside of the bellows apart from the incision area and
sprayed adhesive into the “pocket” in order to stick the inner fabric to
the outer vinyl fabric.

[Alan]

... after the sticking i used a strip of masking tape to further seal the horizontal
join and then used a black marker on the masking tape.

[Alan]

Before and After images . . .

On the first image the black strip on the lower left edge
is the effect the saggy belows had on the images.

[tkmedia]

I completely removed the bellows on one of my cameras, refolded and re glued everything. This looks to be a bit less time consuming.

[Alan]

yup all in all it took about 90 minutes !

not too bad.

I would guess that the bellows are ready to "fail" in other places
so a total overhaul would be good for sure.

Might do a full overhaul if/when I get another land camera to shoot with.

[Option 8]

Would not it just be super simple to grab another bellows from a donor camera? Takes me like 5 minutes to swap and doesnt require any glue.

Though I understand wanting to repair the original, especially if donor bellows are nowhere around.