Replies

1. 
   DonStephan | Apr 24, 2006 03:22am | #1

   The pair of videos from http://www.vacupress.com would be a good first step.  I found a "shop-built" vacuum press to be too problematical if using it for a living and can't wait for a nice commission to get a system from vacupress.

2. 
   daryl | Apr 24, 2006 07:23pm | #2

   A good source is Quality Vauum products. Their URL is:

   http://www.qualityvak.com

   The owner is very knowledgable; I ordered from him at my club's woodworking show on Long Island last year. Good stuff. His website has lots of info.

3. 
   Kenneth | Apr 24, 2006 07:32pm | #3

   Don't do anything until you visit http://www.joewoodworker.com.

    

4. 
   FFFW | Apr 24, 2006 07:37pm | #4

   I have a shop made vacuum press that I use for my hobby to make some smaller test projects with laminated curves. I'm half way through the finishing steps of completing a serpentine front dresser that's the first of the larger projects. I'm in the planning stages of the wife's china hutch that will have curved drawer fronts in one portion, and a curved top on the display cabinet portions.

   I started out building a bag, buying a vacuum pump on E-Bay, and some other parts from Joe Woodworker. The bag was ok, but I had a hard time finding the materials that I perceived a need for to do the work that I wanted. I ended up setting the shopmade bag aside and purchasing one from one of the places on-line. The commercial bag material is more flexible while still strong enough for the pressures I wanted to use.

   Finding and sealing the leaks took a while to get right, but doing so made a big difference to the pump and the finished lamination too. The pump was working too hard (often), and got uncomfortably warm when I had even small leaks (the last one was a back leak through the pump's valves and an extra external check valve here made a huge difference). I worried about leaving it unattended for the setting time of some glues I ended up using before, but after sealing leaks it's really no problem. A full commercial set up may make this step easier.

   It certainly has opened up more possibiltiies in my shop. The curves and flow of the designs that are possible let me get closer to what I want my projects to look like. My best guess is that the dresser is close to a push on materials as far as how much I lost to saw kerf in slicing layers thin enough to take the shape I wanted against just cutting the whole board from a larger blank. I've had to learn about different kinds of glues and resawing at different purposes than I had before. But the grain of the face is nicer, in my opinion, than I would have if I'd simply sliced away at a thicker piece of material to make the drawer fronts.