Greetings,
I just joined SMC a few days ago and I love this place !!! There is so much knowledge assembled here and everyone is so willing to help one another and share information, it's great.
I have a Shopsabre 4896 model that I've had for about 5 years now. I cut small parts out of Dymondwood material for a couple of different customers and I was looking for a good way to hold small pieces without using tabs (bridges).
I stumbled across Bill Polumbo's site at Baycraft Designs. I'm sure he's familiar to many of you Shopbot folks. The vacuum pump setup he shows on his Shopbot page intrigued me, so I built one and it works great. The Gast vacuum pumps are available at The Surplus Center online for $89.95.
The vacuum jigs are made out of two pieces of plastic. The bottom piece is grooved for airflow and the grooves connect to a 1/4" quick disconnect air fitting. The top piece gets shallow pockets a little smaller than the parts you want to cut, and holes are drilled through the pockets into the grooves below. I used 1/32" spoilboard gasket between the plastic pieces, and on top.
I've made small jigs as pictured, and I have one that is 3 ft. x 2 ft. The small jig with the lighter shaped lines is used for cutting .040 thick trim pieces that get glued onto Zippo lighters. I don't know how I'd cut those without vacuum.
I didn't mean to ramble on so, and I hope this isn't old news to the forum here. Just trying to share some ideas that others might find useful.
Thanks,
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