Vacumn Boxes

You risk DEATH fooling around with building pressure vessels if you don't know what you are doing. Have you looked at Binks or Devilbiss pressure pots, they are available up to 10 gallons in size there's quite a bit of internal volume and you can find them used, sometimes in mint condition. I was just looking at these on ebay the other day. These are constructed of steel or stainless, take a look at their lids and hold down clamps.

For vacuum pumps check this place http://www.nationaltoolwarehouse.com/6-CFM-2-Stage-Vacuum-Pump-R-12R-134a-P28784C295.aspx they cater to the HVAC guys and blow pumps out the door at typically the lowest prices. I had a pair of these 6cfm babies when I was thermoforming ABS sheets on a vacuum table. I also had a 10 gallon tank, I would draw down the tank to zero, fire up both pumps blasting then open the vacuum table valve and WHAM slam it with the tank reserve vacuum and both pumps to draw down the ABS sheet in less than 1 second. You have to work fast when vacuum forming thermoplastic sheet.

If a pressure pot is large enough you have the additional option of using pressure. You can suck all the air out of a resin using vacuum but you need lots of extra volume in your container because the resin will expand greatly as you suck the air out, it foams up and expands before falling back down. In pressure forming/casting you basically crush the air bubbles to microscopic size, the resin never expands.

Pressure/vacuum you can have a bunch of fun with this stuff but stay safe, that's my 2 cents worth.
 
10 Gal pots would be great if I were making ink pens, but not larger pieces. Thanks for the link, by the way. :)Saw this on Amazon. ( Yellow Jacket 93580 Superevac Vacuum Pump, 8 Cfm ) any one know anything about this brand? As you can tell, my knowledge on this is zip. So it's a definite learning process. Plenty of research to do. Thank you.
 
Yellow Jacket sells a line of tools used in the HVAC/R trade. Those I have and those I have worked with seem well made. I have not, however, used one of their pumps. I use either a Robinaire or Edwards, depending on the job.
 
Ok. So does anyone know where to find the latches used on pressure paint pots. Or at least what they are called? I haven't been able to find them, myself.
 
Something like this?
http://www.mcmaster.com/#draw-latches/=zqqu9h

I built a vacuum chamber for treating gun stocks. I used a piece of 8 inch diameter PVC pipe (SDR 26) and two end caps. Glue one on and tap the other on and off. IDK if that will suit your needs, but it was cheap since I talked the utility worker out of a drop of pipe.
 
A 10 gallon paint pot is huge. Mine is only 2.5 gallon and i get more than a pen blank or 6 in it. You can also push cactus juice into wood quite effectively. Cover the wood with it and add air up to about 80 pounds, vacate and repeat. When it comes to acrylics and some other resins you won't have enough open time to use vacuum. 80 pounds of pressure can occur in seconds. Just my experience with them... Dave
 
Years ago people used to use refrigerator compressors to evacuate auto ac systems. You can usually get them for free. Don't know if that would work for you or not.
 
Thanks everyone. The approx. 30 gal. compressor tank is now in the hands of a fabricator that does a lot of industrial work. The plan is to cut at the cap weld. add a top and bottom flange and 8 toggle clamps. There will be angle pieces welded inside to place a plate or some type of metal shelf so I can infuse smaller items by placing a smaller container inside, etc. Or even a long piece of PVC for long narrow pieces of wood. I have been looking at a "Yellow jacket" vacuum pump. I would have liked to put in a viewing port on top, but couldn't find a small piece of thick tempered glass. 4.5" dia.. Polycarbonate or acrylic are reportedly affected by the resin vapors. So time will tell.
 
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