Accumulating a large format setup

[Vaughan]

I've tried a basic bellows repair with black acrylic paint, which I'll leave for a few more hours and then see if I missed any pinholes.

Forget it and buy a replacement, the pinholes will keep returning. I purchased a new-old-stock still-in-box Toyo 45 bellows and every corner leaked light. The Toyo synthetic bag bellows also leak everywhere. Don't bother trying to fix them.

If the bellows has flat metal frames then buy the smaller size. The larger bellows is for the (newer) plastic frames. I have both types and have replaced both.

[Reverb]

Mine has plastic frames, with a raised rim on the rear (the side away from the bellows) that fits into a groove in the panel on the front and rear standard. On the bellows side of the frame, there are four small guides (raised) that are 150 mm apart, so a bellows must fit within the area marked out by those. Etone tells me in an email that their 150 mm square bellows has an outer diameter of 153 and inner diameter of 125. I'm confirming with them now that they really did mean 153, because it would be just too large for my frames, which I'd prefer to keep.

[Reverb]

A correction: the frame that my bellows is attached to is metal. Of course. Very light, so I assume it's aluminium. I also figure that I can just glue the eTone 153 mm bellows to it as long as I make sure that it's well sealed on and around the bumps (which are only 150 mm apart).

[Vaughan]

I have both the Toyo 4x5 metal and plastic framed bellows, and replaced both with those from eTone. The metal frames need the smaller size bellows, the plastic the larger size.

[Reverb]

Thanks Vaughan. I've been tussling with the slight lack of information though. I'm not certain what model I have - that's not on the camera - but it's something along the lines of the D45M: cream body, and a stainless steel monorail with teeth on the bottom. As I understand, there are various older models that would fit that description, and very little difference between them, despite the different model numbers.

I was surprised that eTone lists bellows for Toyo in 2 sizes, 160 and 150, which sounds unambiguous enough, but when pressed, they give the outer diameter of the smaller bellows as 153 mm. I'm comfortable with metric and specifically with the idea of a mm measurement being exactly what it says, so to me it can be either 153 or 150, not one for a web listing and another for a "precise" spec. But large format, in just a few weeks, has introduced me to a lot of things I wasn't previously familiar with, so I'll add that to the pile.

It sounds to me as if you have the same metal frame type as I do. Is it uniformly flat, or does it have the raised indicators? My current bellows fits comfortably within the area marked by those, but it seems to me that a 150 and particularly a 153 mm bellows wouldn't.

[Vaughan]

The flat metal frame has a couple of raised bumps. Generally all the bellows, backs and lens boards are interchangeable between cameras; the older frames and rails are not interchangeable with newer models.

[Reverb]

Thanks for the information!