kman wrote: ↑January 17th, 2024, 2:28 pm Anyone know the timeline of Mack's Bellows switch? It's spendy, but a proper flexible pneumatic bellows would be more worth a little extra, compared to a solid (and heavy) hunk of aluminum in the same shape, which most higher end alternatives are.
A lot of Mack's products which were previously available are now showing as "preorder", so it's possible they've just been cleaned out recently and they need to restock their inventory.
The bellows have been sold before so it's just a matter of them doing another run. There's a Mack's Facebook group where they sometimes post updates, and you can potentially post there and get an answer (sometimes they don't have one because of third party suppliers). Occasionally Mack's also posts "secret" runs of leftover parts they're trying to clear out (also sometimes in the Spengler's 1984 Workbench group), they're usually damaged or defective (bad welds etc). But if you're doing a beaten up/weathered pack that's another possibility. Looks like that's why they added the new "Junkyard" category on their website, for items which aren't good enough to charge full price for but still useful to some builders.
Alternatively the gbfans bellows are what I used, and they're similar to the Mack's bellows in that they're flexible and hollow (unlike the benofkent bellows which seem to be a chunk of solid aluminium). They have a 100 day lead time at the moment but sometimes they show up in stock well before that.