Building a box bellows, design here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/57ctm0c3c25pu83/bellows.pdf

 

Can this bellows be successfully built from OSB? I'm worried that the cloth wrap for the piston will get caught on the strands or chunks or whatever the little bits of wood are called. It's reasonably smooth...but is "reasonably" good enough?

box bellows.pdf

Sure you can I can't think of anything that'd stop it from working.

 

What wood bits? You lost me.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

Why not sand the OSB down to very smooth, use a sealer, than a slick surface paint?

They make better finishes on other wood that isn't OSB at similar prices.  I did a plank ceiling with some thinnish pieces of Home Depot wood that is normally sold as higher quality cabinet backer.  Just thick enough for this application and made to be painted or stained so the surface quality is quite good.   OSB will do it, but I generally will only use OSB as an underlayment on a floor or something else where I need thickness but not quality.  It's basically junk/scrap wood compressed into a solid board.  Not a fan. 

generally you make box bellows with something like a sheet of glass for the bottom contact point or formica---slickness and smoothness is the desiderata OSB would not be in my top choices! If you used it I would suggest several coatings of enamel paint and then waxing the surface. 

If one was to go to all the work & effort needed to build a bellows wouldn't make sense to use decent materials? I understand the $$ factor but OSB is really junk wood unusable elsewhere glued together to make a cheap product.

if you put your location in your profile you may find someone local here who has resources that could help you. For example if you are near me, I have scraps of baltic birch plywood you could have for free that would do your narrow strips and I have cutoffs that would do your sides at my cost (wholesale less than half of what HD sells it for) or even a little less depending on my inventory. I am sure there are lots of other people here who work with various plywoods who may be local to you and may be able to set you up with what you need for a similar cost to OSB but a far superior material.

If you cannot find a local resource and really need to go cheap I would go with MDF over OSB. The mdf is really smooth, however if it will might get wet do not use it as it will blow up like a balloon.

I would be inclined to go with a hardwood plywood. A baltic birch plywood will hold screws on the edge grain if you drill a pilot hole to prevent splitting. The extra bit of money you spend building will pay off in the life of the bellows. Going with high quality material will also allow you to use lighter (cheaper) materials. A 1/2" baltic will be sturdier than a 3/4" OSB bellows

I have some suggestion but you need to keep this material out of water.

The poster has not returned to the site since making this post.  Makes one wonder about his motives for posting.

You need something smoother than OSB. I have one of quality plywood, sanded fine and finished. The thing is, we wrapped the edges of the plunger board with fire hose material, which was too hard. We got rough, squeaky, squawky results. I'm told they use a badger fur lining in Japan (is true?). Anyway, I'm thinking that perhaps leather with its rabbit fur might be good to use, assuming one used careful measurements for fur thickness and one used a good adhesive like Barge's.

Rabbit is a really weak fur and tends to pull out real easily.  How about some shearling sheep?

I had thought I  had seen racoon mentioned somewhere. 

I actually work at Home Depot, your cheapest bet will be BC plywood, then polyurethane. Felt or similar material to reduce slider friction. With a 1/8 blade, cutting dead on the line will give you a 1/16 gap around all edges, fabric will pretty much fill that. I'm no expert here, just my take on it. (BC is sanded on one side fairly well)