I have a lovely bellows which has gone slightly porous at the leather.
Is there any fix apart from stripping and re-upholstering.
Thanks in advance.
Seasoning? My bellows was seasoned originally with olive oil and beeswax , it spat out some chunks of beeswax for a while initially but it has been going well for thirty years now.
You will need to ask the person who made the bellows what, if anything, was used to seal the leather.
The sealant used in Mr.Gumby’s bellows is a mixture of 55% Olive Oil to 45% Beeswax (approx ) which is heated in a pot to melt and poured into the bellows whilst quite warm. Then slopped around to cover all the leather surfaces . It is a really messy job and dangerous, in that the liquid can burn the leather, or yourself if too hot .
I avoid this messy job these days when making a new bellows by choosing airtight hides and gluing two thinner hides together… then all I need to do is rub in the beeswax/olive oil mix by hand before assembly of the bellows.
Note: there needs to be enough oil in the mixture to prevent it becoming brittle at low temperatures … so a nice greasy consistency… too oily and it will leach through the leather .
Geoff— What glue do you use to glue the leather together? I ask because I did that with rubber cement and I ended up with a bellows spewing a terrible solvent smell.
I use Liquid Neoprene , spreading this onto the hairy side of the two layers, though it should be possible to do this with something like ’ Fiebing’s Leather Craft Cement’ which as far as I can tell is a flexible PVA.
I just use the Liquid Neoprene because of it’s extra air sealing qualities and it’s flexibility.
Thanks!