Pictures of my vacuum veneering setup

I got busted for not having pictures, so I took a few last night. First there is my vacuum pump. It is a Gast pump that my dad got from a friend who services Xerox equipment at one time. I built a carrier for it and added a switch and gauge (Grainger, $6-something). For now, I'm just going to run it continuously.

Next, a picture of the bag with a vacuum drawn. I need to make a bigger platten at some point. This one was made to fit the Space Bag I used for my first project. The next picture shows the corner. I used the Joe Woodworker techique of painting the leaking areas with glue to seal them up and it worked great. Finally, a picture of the vacuum connection. It is a valve stem cut from a bicycle inner tube with the core removed. Worked perfectly and very easy and inexpensive. Someone pointed out that you should be able to get them for free from a bike shop.

To close the bag, I used an idea from the Joe Woodworker site. The metal rod is a shower curtain rod and the pipe is Schedule 40 PVC. I did have one minor issue--the sharp edges on the PVC put a small tear in the bag. I think running a file over thos edges will solve that problem.

hey nice setup... looks a lot like the setup I also use. happy veneering
lou

Excellent. Now I can see exactly what you did. Very kewel.