Vacuum Pump

[Roy Harding]

For vacuum bagging, I don't think the pump is much of a factor. Before I made a Venturi vacuum pump, I used a hand pump to evacuate vacuum bags when veneering. Worked like a charm. (You can see what I'm talking about here.)

Edited to add - the above applies to vacuum bagging ONLY, won't work for clamping for all the reasons discussed by others.

[dmidkiff]

Thanks Bob, Gerry and Roy, I will have to check because I don't want oil misting out in the shop. Even though I will mainly use for bagging, I'm sure there will be occasional hold down use. Thanks again guys.

[rhfurniture]

I have a Busch 1.1kw oil filled pump (out of a cake factory) for pucks and it works like a dream. It only starts to smell if the vacuum gets much below 20 in HG - ie the cfm goes up.
R

[Ger21]

I missed the part about vacuum bagging. For vacuum bagging, then you do want to use a reservoir (tank), to reduce the pump cycling on/off. Check out the designs at www.joewoodworker.com