Guilding Bellows

[Paul Read]

I'm about to embark on a task that I haven't tried before - reguilding bellows on a nice 30B Jones where there is wear in areas of the (still sound) bellows. Can anybody suggest a good guidance on doing this work? Gold pens from Tandy has been suggested.

[otsaku]

Gold leaf would be my guess. I used it restoring old bindings on my books many years ago with good result.

 

The only drawback I found was wear and tear so I used a humbrol model varnish carefully dabbed over the gold leaf. A friend of mine uses a clear nail varnish...

 

On a couple of books the stamping or impression of the lettering is very shallow and I used a blunt knitting needle to carefully press the leather down - tedious work.

 

Paper masking tape is non-destructive so I general use that to buile a mask around the area needing leaf applied and use a bluntish stanley blade to carefully cut away the tape that is covering the design or lettering. My freind mentioned above uses white glue of the type used in schools - preferably made from animal byproducts. His way is faster than mine as he can paint it on but I've avoided it because it needs a steadier hand than my dexterity allows.

 

 

I have no idea what the property of the leather dyes on concertinas are but I would be wary of using any gold pen as they contain solvents that may result in discolouring. The more learned can tell you about that.

 

SO the short answer is gold leaf