Is using a heat gun on old leather bellows worth the risk? I'm split.

I had a beat-up 1950s Agfa folder with a pinhole in the bellows last month and tried the heat gun trick to shrink the leather back tight, and it actually sealed the leak on the first try. But I've also seen guys cook the bellows so bad they crack into dust, so I'm wondering if it's a real fix or just a desperate gamble. Has anyone else had luck with this or gone another route like liquid patch?

3 comments

3 Comments

emma_jones6d agoMost Upvoted

Oh man, I used a hair dryer on my old bellows and it just made the smell worse.

emma_jones6d agoMost Upvoted

Wait, so you had the same thing happen with a hair dryer? I used to think heat was the way to go for bellows, figured it would dry them out and stiffen them up. But after reading your post and the one above about the heat gun, I'm starting to think I was wrong and it just bakes the smell in. Definitely rethinking my whole approach now.

the_rose6d ago

Yeah, totally agree! I tried the heat gun on a set of bellows from an old Kodak and it actually worked for a few weeks until the leather just gave out completely in a new spot. The smell was awful though, like burnt hair and old shoes mixed together. I switched to a liquid patch after that and it held up way better, but the heat gun definitely gave me a false sense of success for a bit. It's like you want to believe you fixed it but deep down you know it's just a bandaid over a bullet hole.