[sawmiller]

hye heres a cheap vac pump i just saw on ebay... might be a good deal for someome local to calif.
http://cgi.ebay.com/10HP-Vacuum-Pump...QQcmdZViewItem
dan

[BensMillwork]

Thanks for the update,I need a vavuum system.\

Ben

[skippy]

Wow, seeing that thing was a trip down memory lane for me. I bought an ESAB router in 1990 (as per the one pictured in the background of the Ebay advertisement) and it came with that same huge noisy motor. For cutting letters, etc. it was great but most of my work was repetitive stuff using a few fixed sizes so I ended up making my own mdf vac fixtures hooked up to a cheap vac cleaner (with a bypass valve in order to not cook the vac cleaner motor) and that had far more holding strength due to its design and was much cheaper to run in terms of electricity cost.
The 10hp motor would certainly be valuable for other purposes though especially if picked up cheaply.

[Pete in Arizona]

Skippy, can you post a thread about how you built that home made vacuum system? I was just thinking about trying to make one. The commercial versions are crazy expensive. I'm trying to get my first table purchased right now and can't afford an extra $3000 for a vacuum hold down system.

Thanks, Pete

[skippy]

Hi Pete,
First do a search here regarding vacuum beds and you'll see the wonderful array of things that people have built themselves and see if one suits your needs. I used to do engraving of different sized rectangular pieces of acrylic (perspex or plexiglass) so I made a simple setup using two layers of mdf (the base piece and the middle piece with the grooves in it) The job itself formed formed the top piece so that it was near enough to hermetic(as near as mdf can be). Mine suited my needs as one job might take a week to engrave and at the end I would change one vac bed for another to suit the next job. The majority of people need something more flexible where you can do a half hour job and then cut something completely different using the same fixtures. Mine wouldn't do that.

[Pete in Arizona]

Thanks Skippy, I'll start searching for all the different choices out there.

Pete
Lone Tree Creations