I plan on setting up a vacuum bagging system to bag balsa skins onto surfboards (eps, and pu) and to press longboard skateboards. I came across this pump at a garage sale for cheap and I was wondering if the specs are good enough for these uses. Here is a link to the full specs (its the dual head pump):
I was hoping some of the vac baggers on sways could give me some feedback to let me know if this is gonna work out. I have never bagged before but it seems like if I have a low cfm I could get the initial air out with a shop vac and as long as I can get the max vacuum I should be good assume that I don’t have leaks or that the leaks are not at a moving air at a higher cfm than my vacuum. I was noticing on the free flow curve that at 10hg the vacuum will pull 0.45 cfm and at 15hg it will pull 0.25cfm. I think I won’t need to press more than 14hg to bag balsa skins onto eps is 0.25cfm going to be enough to maintain vacuum in a larger surfboard bag (say 10ft). Will the pump work for laminating skateboard blanks at say 18hg-20hg where the pump will work under 0.2cfm but in a smaller under 1ft x 4ft max? What are some of the specs on other vacuums that people on sways have used succesfully? Sorry for the long winded question. I’m just not sure if this pump is strong enough to work well or if am gonna have to shell out some $$ and get a pump at joewoodworker.com or some other site?
it should work fine, just slow… your are going to want to do some full scale tests before you mix any resin… i would really suggest NOT using the “build a bag out of plastic painters tarps” method… i did it for my first two boards and it almost drove me insane and made me think vac bagging was a waste of time… i use the baggin tubing and quick lock seals from this place http://www.acp-composites.com/acp-vbes.htm. cheap and easy…
What are the specs on your pump? I am just curious as to what a good pump would be. I figure I can buy all the parts to set up my vac bag system see how it works and if it feels sluggish all I have to do is add a new pump to my existing setup and sell my old pump. If I were to get a new pump how many max cfm should I be shooting for and how many cfm in the 10hg-14hg range that I will be using for surfboard skins.
I’ve found that the cheap bagging is good for some applications and not so good for others. Anywhere that you have the balsa edges in contact with the bag is a total pain, but it worked great when I bagged the glass. However, I’m starting to think that quality materials is the way to go.
The AutoVac Pump is a low cost, compact, quiet industrial quality electric diaphram pump designed to operate continuously. It will deliver up to 20 " of mercury (Hg) and uses standard 3/8" pipe thread fittings. Two years manufacturer’s warranty is given.
I bought the pump, vac switch, and bag connection from ACP. I continue to buy bag tubing & seals from them. I built the rest from parts from OSH. I have no idea what the exacts specs are, but I do know I bought a pump intended for exactly what I do with it…
thanks for the help. I will try to contact someone at ACP to get the specs on it. My pump looks like your pump except with two heads. Similar size so I don’t think the motor will pull that much less cfm than your pump. I guess if I set it all up and it doesn’t pull as well as I would like I can just replace the pump on the same setup. Im just worried that pulling at 10-14 the flow of the vacuum of 0.2cfm will not be strong enough to maintain that 10-14hg in a larger bag. I see you have quite a few tanks. Did you set it up with a subreservoir or and a mac switch like joewoodworker recommends? Or is that just 3 tanks for less cycling?
Its 3 tanks for less cycling. It cycles for about 30 seconds every 7 minutes. Its also nice to pull vac into all the tanks & pinch off the hose. Then I pull out most of the air in my bag with a shop vac. Pull out the shop vac hose & seal the bag. Then unpinch the line & the tanks take care of the rest of the bag faster than the pump would on its own. I started with 1 tank but it wsa so easy to build that I just added 2 more because I had the space.
