Make your own bellows papers

[chris salty-dog vonderborch]

It is easy, using modern technology, to design and make high quality bellows papers. I will outline the method:

 

First of all, design the pattern, and draft it up about 2 times larger than required. I use a "clip-art" design book for suitable patterns, but one could source such patterns on the internet also. I cut out selected bits of the scrolls and arrange them within the outline of the pattern; I glue them with a glue-stick, then erase any unwanted blotches with "white-out"

 

Next, decide on the final size of the papers; mark the required width on a piece of scrap paper. Take this to your local Xerox shop and they will scale down the drawing to fit the size required. Then ask them to "clone" the pattern; you will get several copies of the pattern to scale, on an A4 sheet. I copy this 2-3 times, then cut out the pieces and glue them close together onto a master A4 sheet, maybe 20 to a sheet. This is the "master sheet".

 

From a "fancy paper" shop, select the colour desired as background. I selected a dull patterned gold style in A4 size, and purchased a packet of 10 sheets. The paper is listed as being compatible with laser jet printers.

 

Back to the Xerox shop! The kind assistant then will print the master onto the gold sheets until you have in XS of 96 copies (for 7-fold bellows). You cut these out individually with scissors whilst listening to Irish concertina music, and glue them onto the bellows!

[Ken_Coles]

Chris, I removed your three threads where you attempted to attach a photo. Why don't you just try it here. A link to a photo posted elsewhere will more likely work.

 

Ken

[Ashkettle]

I love to look of a nice bellows paper. It's the only thing I would change about my Morse. It's like having a sports car without pin-striping.

[Ken_Coles]

I love to look of a nice bellows paper. It's the only thing I would change about my Morse. It's like having a sports car without pin-striping.

Well, Richard, I felt that way about my Morse, and Chris's method would have been faster than mine. The late Rich Morse was kind enough to give a hearty laugh when he saw it.

 

Ken

[Ross]

I love to look of a nice bellows paper. It's the only thing I would change about my Morse. It's like having a sports car without pin-striping.

Well, Richard, I felt that way about my Morse, and Chris's method would have been faster than mine. The late Rich Morse was kind enough to give a hearty laugh when he saw it.

 

Ken

 

I used a similar technique a few years back for simplifying my music reading while playing in a Bell Choir. Some of the pieces had multiple page turns, usually while my hands were busy with the bells, while some of them also had 2 or 3 lines added for the accompaniment, making 4 or 5 staffs of music, while I only needed to read just one. I would photocopy all the pages, the ones with repeats were copied twice. Then I would cut out just the lines that I was playing on and arrange them using tape or glue on one or two sheets of blank paper. Then a trip back to the copy machine for the final print.

[Ashkettle]

I love to look of a nice bellows paper. It's the only thing I would change about my Morse. It's like having a sports car without pin-striping.

Well, Richard, I felt that way about my Morse, and Chris's method would have been faster than mine. The late Rich Morse was kind enough to give a hearty laugh when he saw it.

 

Ken

 

Ken, that is truly a work of art you have there. I may break down some day and put some papers on my Morse. Nothing quite as unique as yours, I imagine, but I do think it adds something to the look.

[hjcjones]

Whilst bellows papers can look very nice, I'm perfectly happy with plain bellows. My very first concertina had papers, but for the last 30 years I've been playing instruments which don't have them It's never occurred to me to add them, and I don't think their absence detracts from the look.

[LDT]

Back to the Xerox shop! The kind assistant then will print the master onto the gold sheets until you have in XS of 96 copies (for 7-fold bellows). You cut these out individually with scissors whilst listening to Irish concertina music, and glue them onto the bellows!

 

Can I just ask what is a Xerox shop?

 

I'd probably just draw/paint a design by hand then scan it in use photoshop to tidy it up and duplicate and then print it out.

 

Unless it has to be on a certain type of paper?

[jdms]

 

Can I just ask what is a Xerox shop?

 

 

An establishment you can visit to have your documents duplicated by xerography. Er, that is, a copy shop--hereabouts (Massachusetts) that's usually a UPS Store, a Staples office supply store (they generally have copy/print shops in the back) or a FedEx Office (formerly FedEx Kinko's, formerly Kinko's). I don't know what the usual suspects are east of the North Atlantic, but no doubt you have some idea...

 

jdms

[chris salty-dog vonderborch]

 

Can I just ask what is a Xerox shop?

 

 

An establishment you can visit to have your documents duplicated by xerography. Er, that is, a copy shop--hereabouts (Massachusetts) that's usually a UPS Store, a Staples office supply store (they generally have copy/print shops in the back) or a FedEx Office (formerly FedEx Kinko's, formerly Kinko's). I don't know what the usual suspects are east of the North Atlantic, but no doubt you have some idea...

 

jdms

 

 

 

Down here south of the equator, we Aussies call a "photocopy Shop" a "Xerox Shop", just as we call those animals that look a bit like deer "Kangaroos"

[John Wild]

As I recall, the Xerox corporation when it had a near monopoly, made a lot of money because of the psychological factor of why take one copy when we might need two, or two copies when we might need three. If their income, as it once was, was based on a charge per copy, this multiplied their income.

 

- John Wild

Edited January 27, 2010 by John Wild

[Ken_Coles]

As I recall, the Xerox corporation when it had a near monopoly, made a lot of money because of the psychological factor of why take one copy when we might need two, or two copies when we might need three. If their income, as it once was, was based on a charge per copy, this multiplied their income.

 

- John Wild

 

Why own one concertina when we could own two? Why own two when we could own three?

 

Ken

[MichaelF]

Back to the Xerox shop! The kind assistant then will print the master onto the gold sheets until you have in XS of 96 copies (for 7-fold bellows). You cut these out individually with scissors whilst listening to Irish concertina music, and glue them onto the bellows!

 

Can I just ask what is a Xerox shop?

 

I'd probably just draw/paint a design by hand then scan it in use photoshop to tidy it up and duplicate and then print it out.

 

Unless it has to be on a certain type of paper?

 

The bellows papers I removed from a Lachenal are all slightly different in detail when examined closely, whereas at a glance they all look the same. They must have all been decorated by hand - maybe this was normal before Xerox copiers.