"... but nobody withstands The Machine."
We need the pump before we can play with the spheres and for that we need to be just this side of Enlightenment and know how to machine. I don't think a bellows will work (at all?) on an industrial scale, even his toy spheres needed a legitimate vacuum pump.
Machine tool, History -Wiki
Forerunners of machine tools included bow drills and potter's wheels, which had existed in ancient Egypt prior to 2500 BC, and lathes, known to have existed in multiple regions of Europe since at least 1000 to 500 BC.[6] But it was not until the later Middle Ages and the Age of Enlightenment that the modern concept of a machine tool—a class of machines used as tools in the making of metal parts, and incorporating machine-guided toolpath—began to evolve.
Clockmakers of the Middle Ages and renaissance men such as Leonardo da Vinci helped expand humans' technological milieu toward the preconditions for industrial machine tools. During the 18th and 19th centuries, and even in many cases in the 20th, the builders of machine tools tended to be the same people who would then use them to produce the end products (manufactured goods). However, from these roots also evolved an industry of machine tool builders as we define them today, meaning people who specialize in building machine tools for sale to others.
Historians of machine tools often focus on a handful of major industries that most spurred machine tool development. In order of historical emergence, they have been firearms (small arms and artillery); clocks; textile machinery; steam engines (stationary, marine, rail, and otherwise)...
So, we need to know how to machine and have a reason why we do. You have vacuum distilleries?... NP.
He probably owes you money, eh?... Well I'll ask 'em...
Failing this criteria, then I'd guess we're looking for the maximum bar that a bellows can pull and whether or not that's acceptable for the process in question.
I'm having a hard time finding data, or use of bellows ->backwards. I'm guessing no one came forward and said "That's great Mr. Magdeburg Otto, but all you've done is make a metal contraption [vacuum pump] just like my (imaginary) leather bellows thingy".