# Cheap bellows for a Micro Mark mill



## albertorc19 (Nov 24, 2013)

No long ago the bellows of my mini mill broke. I first though of ordering a new set but S&H charges are high, about 30.00 dollars for a small parcel sent to Mexico. 

Since I have previous experience making bellows for enlargers and other photographic equipment I decided to make my own bellows using cheap self adhesive plastic film. 

The bellows are bright blue because I didn't find black film at the store. I spent about one dollar on the film. The shape of the bellow is defined by card strips cut to size and glued to the sticky face of the film. I used a not very heavy paper, the kind used for greeting cards is good for this purpose, discarded cardboard from cereal boxes is also a good material. The strips are 160 mm long by 10 mm wide and the ends are cut at a 45° angle. The small ones are 30 mm long. Dimensions need not to be very exact but good cuts and regular dimensions result in better bellows.

When making this bellows one must leave about 2 mm between the strips in order to allow the bellow to fold to shape.

I used the original metal strips to fix the new bellows to the mill base but I had to trim them a bit.

I can not tell right now how durable these bellows are but they are very cheap and it took only about one hour and a half to fold both. Bellows can be made of more durable materials such as syntetic leather, heavy cardboard and contact glue. 

Next project: bellows for the Mini Lathe


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## Anko (Nov 24, 2013)

Hey that's very useful!

The ones in my mini mill had broken for a lot of time now, I will look to replace them with your method.

Saludos


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## albertorc19 (Nov 24, 2013)

The first picture shows my method to cut the ends of the paper strips with a 45° angle.

The second picture shows the bellow's interior after folded. I covered this side with the same film, the paper strips are protected from moisture, oil, etc. If not protected this way the paper stripes will degrade quickly. Thin strips of polystirene or polypropilene should make a far more durable support media.

It is possible to have the folded bellow under a heavy book for a while in order to have well defined creases.

The bellows folded this way have no limit regarding size, the lenght of the unfolded bellow should be about 30% larger than the longest distance that is to be covered by it. If the bellow is too long it may interfere with the travel of the table.

Saludos cordiales en español ...


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## purpleknif (Nov 25, 2013)

Thanks for the tip !


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## Wizard69 (Nov 25, 2013)

Do you have more info on that sticky backed plastic material?


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## albertorc19 (Nov 26, 2013)

The sticky material is polypropilene film with an adhesive covered side. It's usually sold at stationery stores, it's used to cover books and notebooks so they last longer. I'm not sure but I think that Home Depot may have a similar material.


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## PaPaMitch (Mar 5, 2015)

I like it! I need to do the same to my mill. Gotta go check out HD and Lowes.


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