I am considering buying or building a vacuum chuck system. What components or systems have any of you had experiance with? Should any of them be avoided? What pumps are best, least noisy?
Thanks
You can certainly gather together lot of parts & pieces to make your own system or bite the bullet and just buy complete system. Recommend buying a complete basic system where ever you buy.
+1 on the Frugal as well. I bought mine knowing it was a good deal for all of the pieces, and that if I ever wanted to change over to a pre-fab chuck, I could re-use the pump (one of the most, if not the most, expensive components) and a lot of the misc hardware.
Jim, check out my web site, www.woodturnerstools.com. The Tail Stock Steady is a better alternative to a vac system or any other system made today. It's also a lot safer as your nearly finished piece will be between centers until it's complete. It will also allow you to do such thing as Cholla bowls which have a million pores in it, wood with cracks, bark inclusions and such which you could never draw a vacuum unless it was stabilized.
I came up with the concept in 2011, and my success rate on completion went from 66% to 99.5%.
Cricket, if this looks like an Ad, and not allowed, please remove this post. ................ Jerry (in Tucson)
I want to thank everybody for your suggestions.
I will build my own system at a fraction of the cost opf any that I have seen advertised.
As far as the chuck(s), I haven't decided yet.
First I like to fabricate my own equipment and I admit to being a cheepskate.
Vacuum manifold parts:
$12 vacuum gauge--Amazon
$25 pipe fittings & valve--Home depot (I had a couple 1/4" tees)
Rotating joint:
$8 sealed bearing (1 1/4 OD X 3/8 ID X 3/8 thick)--Amazon
My handwheel is 1" ID so I will open it to give the bearing a slip fit then epoxy a 3/8" hose fitting in it
and add a gasket & a couple set screws to hold the bearing.
This will allow me to use a faceplate to mount the vacuum chuck and keep it close to the spindle
by not using a scroll chuck to hold it.
$50- $100 for a vacuum pump at Harbor Frieght or Amazon.
I like the oil-less pump the Frugal system uses but they are out of them and they cost more.
Like you I was interested but not enough to pony up money. Years ago I acquired a pump and it sat around gathering dust until yesterday. I cobbled one together in a few minutes. Seriously they are so simple and easy to make it is crazy I didn't do it earlier. Aside from the pump, mine is 3 parts. A tube that runs into a sealed bearing - which is pressed into a faceplate. So, tube, bearing, faceplate… ok, four if you count the piece of foam spray glued to the faceplate. Works awesomely cost $8.
I went with the Frugal Vacuum Chuck Super Frugal System. If in stock it is fairly hard to beat price wise, at least for as nice of a pump. You can go cheaper if you are willing to go for a lesser pump, but the HF pumps looked kind of marginal to me. So the $205 for the Super Frugal, the complete setup didn't seem like much of a splurge. I didn't need to buy anything else.
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Related Threads
?
?
?
?
?
LumberJocks Woodworking Forum
2.5M posts
96K members
Since 2006
A forum community dedicated to professional woodworkers and enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about shop safety, wood, carpentry, lumber, finishing, tools, machinery, woodworking related topics, styles, scales, reviews, accessories, classifieds, and more!