Bellows

Bellows, George Wesley, 1882-1925, American painter, draftsman, and lithographer, b. Columbus, Ohio; son of an architect and builder. In his senior year he left Ohio State Univ. to study painting under Robert Henri in New York City. Bellows never visited Europe and seemed uninfluenced by the currents affecting his European contemporaries, but he actively supported independent art movements in New York City. His work has a direct, unselfconscious realism and has survived because of its humanity and sincere conviction. Forty-two Kids (Corcoran Gall., Washington, D.C.); Up the River (Metropolitan Mus.); Stag at Sharkey's (Mus. of Art, Cleveland); and a portrait of the artist's mother (Art Inst., Chicago) are characteristic paintings. Bellows revived lithography in the United States, and his prints are as important as his paintings. Billy Sunday, Dance in a Mad House, and Dempsey and Firpo are American classics. He was a noted teacher at the Art Students League, New York City.

Bellows, Henry Whitney, 1814-82, American clergyman, b. Boston. From 1839 until his death he was pastor of the First Congregational Society, Unitarian (later Church of All Souls) in New York City. Bellows organized and administered the U.S. Sanitary Commission, which served the sick and wounded of the Civil War. He was one of the founders of Antioch College.

bellows, expansible, gas-tight chamber used to pump or store a gas. One of the simplest and most familiar types of bellows is the manual one used for providing a forced draft to a fire. The expansible chamber consists of a leather bag with pleated sides. The bag is fixed between handles in such a way that they can be used to make it expand and contract. The inlet and outlet vents are provided with valves so that air must enter through the first and leave through the second. The device thus comprises a simple air pump. One of the major uses of the bellows has been to provide a draft for fires that are used to help extract a metal from its ore. In a device such as an aneroid barometer a small bellows is filled with a known amount of gas that expands and contracts in response to changes in external pressure. This small bellows is coupled to some form of indicating or recording device. Another use of the bellows has been to provide wind for such musical instruments as the accordion and older pipe organs.

Mechanical contrivance for creating a jet of air, consisting usually of a hinged box with flexible sides, which expands to draw in air through an inward opening valve and contracts to expel the air through a nozzle. Invented in medieval Europe, the bellows was commonly used to speed combustion, as in a blacksmith's or ironworker's forge, or to operate reed or pipe organs.

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(born Aug. 12, 1882, Columbus, Ohio, U.S.—died Jan. 8, 1925, New York, N.Y.) U.S. painter and lithographer. He studied with Robert Henri at the New York School of Art and became associated with the artists of the Ash Can school. Best known for his boxing scenes, he achieved notoriety with his painting Stag at Sharkey's (1909), which depicts an illegal boxing match. He was one of the organizers of the Armory Show. From 1916 until his death he produced a series of some 200 lithographs, including the well-known Dempsey and Firpo (1924).

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(born Aug. 12, 1882, Columbus, Ohio, U.S.—died Jan. 8, 1925, New York, N.Y.) U.S. painter and lithographer. He studied with Robert Henri at the New York School of Art and became associated with the artists of the Ash Can school. Best known for his boxing scenes, he achieved notoriety with his painting Stag at Sharkey's (1909), which depicts an illegal boxing match. He was one of the organizers of the Armory Show. From 1916 until his death he produced a series of some 200 lithographs, including the well-known Dempsey and Firpo (1924).

Learn more about Bellows, George Wesley with a free trial on Britannica.com.

A bellows is a device for delivering pressurized air in a controlled quantity to a controlled location. Basically, a bellows is a deformable container which has an outlet nozzle. When the volume of the bellows is decreased, the air escapes through the outlet. A bellows typically also has a separate inlet and valves or flaps for ensuring that air enters only through the inlet and exits only through the outlet.

Metallurgy

Several processes, such as metallurgical iron smelting and welding, require so much heat that they could only be developed after the invention of the bellows. The bellows are used to deliver additional air to the fuel, raising the rate of combustion and therefore the heat output.

Various kinds of bellows are used in metallurgy:

• Box bellows were and are traditionally used in Asia. (1)
• Pot bellows were used in ancient Egypt. (2)
• Tatara foot bellows from Japan.
• Accordion bellows, with the characteristic pleated sides, have been used in Europe for many centuries. (3)
• Piston bellows were developed in the middle of the 18th century in Europe (4). However, the double action piston bellows were utilised by the Han rulers in ancient China as early as the 3rd century BCE (5).
• Metal bellows were made to absorb axial movement in a dynamic condition.Often referred to as Axial Dynamics bellow types (6)

The ancient Chinese craftsman Du Shi once applied water-power (waterwheel) to operate bellows of a blast furnace forging cast iron. The ancient Greeks, ancient Romans, and other civilizations used bellows in bloomery furnaces producing wrought iron. Bellows are also used to send pressurized air in a controlled manner in a fired heater.

In modern industry, reciprocating bellows are usually replaced with motorized blowers.

Further applications

• Bellows are widely used in industrial and mechanical applications such as rod boots, machinery way covers, lift covers and rail covers.
• Bellows tubing, a type of lightweight, flexible, extensible tubing may be used for delivery of gas or air at near-ambient pressure, as in early aqua-lung designs.
• Cuckoo clocks use bellows to blow air through their gedackt (pipes) and imitate the call of the Common Cuckoo bird.
• Folding cameras, such as early Polaroid models and some early Kodak Retina and Retinette cameras, used bellows to exclude light while allowing the lens to be moved relative to the film plane for focusing.
• Musical instruments may employ bellows as a substitute or regulator for air pressure provided by the human lungs:
• Accordion, concertina and related instruments
• Reed organ
• Pipe organ
• Some varieties of bagpipes
• Harmonium
• Portative

See also

• sylphon for uses of metal bellows in experimental physics and engineering.

References

1. http://www.witzenmann.com
2. http://www.anvilfire.com/FAQs/archives/g072002d.htm .
3. http://www.archaeogate.org/egittologia/article/182/8/mersa-gawasis-red-sea-egypt-unoisiao-and-bu-2003-2004-f.html .
4. [ref. needed]
5. http://www.davistownmuseum.org/TDMtoolGlossary.htm
6. Gernet, Jacques, trans. by J. R. Foster (1972): A History of Chinese Civilization, Cambridge University Press.

External links

• http://www.wwmag.net/blacksmith.htm for bellows used in primitive blacksmithing.
• http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Bellows for a general discussion of bellows in metal work.