Hey guys,

Been a while since I've posted. Last year I built a 4x2 CNCRouterParts machine. I cut a lot of guitar parts and a lot of plywood on it and it does a great job. I am starting to do even more plywood work and I'm looking into vacuum holding and I have no idea what I'm even looking at. I've read as many threads as I can find about vacuum holding and various table designs and while it seems easy enough to do, I have no idea where to begin as far as the actual vacuum goes.

I have seen a few videos of simple shop vac holding tables and I know it isn't good for the vacuum, but I think this might be an easy way to get started. I have a shop vac that never gets used and what I'm really wondering is how much work holding can I expect from a shop vac?

Assume I build a basic table with a pegboard top for the airflow. Let's say 24x48 inches, so when I put my cut down sheet of plywood on there, it complete covers the whole vacuum table. I have been cutting parts at 250ipm at 0.3" DOC in 1/2" prefinished baltic birch. The parts aren't small, but they aren't huge either. Some are roughly 12x12, while others are maybe 3x12. I am trying to eliminate the use of tabs and screws for work holding so an onion skin doesn't really interest me. I'd love to be able to just pull parts off the machine when the cutting is done.

Is a shop vac sufficient for this kind of cutting or will I just ruin plywood? I don't have the exact specs of the shop vac, but I want to say it's in the 4-5hp range.

Thanks for any insights. I've seen the shopbot links to those $130 vacuums, so I might be interested in that eventually but for now I want to know if I can make a shop vac work and upgrade later.