A New Homemade Vac Bag

[Yojevol]

I've had my vacuum press outfit up and running for a couple of years but the bag is too small for my latest project. A new bag of the shelf was going to cost a lot of dosh, so I decided to make my own.
Here it is in use for the first time today:-

I purchased 4 x 1.35m of .5mm clear PVC from Allplas, cut it in half and joined the long edges with double sided sticky tape. I left both ends open to allow easy insertion of the work piece.
The end seals are made of dowel and blue water pipe with a lengthwise strip cut out. All for a cost of no more than £50 including a few basic plumbing fittings for the hose connection.

The project is an elliptical table top made of 22mm MDF clad on the upper side with 2mm veneers of American Walnut and lipped with strips of solid AW. The underside is being covered with ordinary AW veneer just to hide the MDF. The veneer is going on in radial bits because I had a lot of bits and pieces left over from my previous project. That is what is going on in this photo.
I hope to put more pics up as the job progresses.
Brian

 

[Steve Maskery]

Nice one Brian, I look forward to seeing more.
When I had a lot of my stuff nicked, it included my nice AirPress. It was one of the early models, but did a lovely job, carbon vanes, oilless, very nice. I had two bags and was left with one.
I bought a vac pump off ebat. It was, IIRC £40, but the guy had the wrong model number, In a range of 8 models, this was No3 rather than No8 as he had claimed. The picture on the box was a No.8, the machine inside was a No3. He had a 100% satisfaction rating, so I persuaded him to offer it to me for the postage.
I bought some pressure hose, fitting and gauge locally, and a breach valve from a place in Stoke and made a sewing-machine type of box in which to house it all. I am back up and running for well under £100.
The only downside is that it needs oil and that comes out as a mist. The workshop get fogged up, which can't be good for me.
I'd never thought of using DS tape, I would have used silicone sealant. I shall bear that in mind, thanks for the idea.